THERE’S something peculiarly quaint and nostalgic about the idea of towns having half-day closing for shops.

Years ago when touring on camping holidays I can remember how essential it was to check if shops closed on a Wednesday, Thursday or even Tuesday rather than risk arriving in a place and finding you couldn’t buy food for tea.

It was the practice of another age, or at least that’s what I thought until I read last week of Hyndburn council leader Peter Britcliffe’s suggestion that completion of Accrington’s new market hall was the idea opportunity for businesses to open on a Sunday and end half-day closing on Wednesdays.

The fact that the councillor’s call seems to have been viewed by some traders as a revolutionary act is quite astonishing.

The only thing more surprising is that at a time when we are told we work the longest hours in Europe some retailers still choose to close from noon to 1pm to eat – at the only time when most office workers can actually get out to the shops!

With 24/7 online shopping, supermarkets everywhere (along with all kinds of other stores) open from at least dawn until dusk (and sometimes 24 hours) six days a week and as long as the law allows on Sundays it’s not surprising that so many of our high streets are beginning to look like scenes from those TV series in which alien invaders have wiped out all but a handful of people but left all the buildings intact.

Many people may well be struggling to make a living and I certainly don’t envy small businesses trying to compete against national and international chains.

And if a town like Accrington has always had half-day closing it is going to take some time for people to realise that they don’t need to go elsewhere if they want something on a Wednesday afternoon. The truth is that businesses exist to serve and the idea that their proprietors are doing us a favour by allowing us to be their customers is long gone.

In fact such an attitude isn’t even proving financially successful in the fictional frock shop of TV’s Lark Rise to Candleford – and that’s set in the late 19th century! And while there are still many principled individuals who hold strongly to the view that Sunday shouldn’t be a shopping day they are now a tiny minority.

You only have to look at the crammed car parks at the Boundary and Oswaldtwistle Mill complexes, out-of-town retail centres and the supermarkets to see that.

The majority with jobs have limited time to browse and spend.

Only those places that are open when we need them will get the sales.