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Great to watch Granada Reports last night and a positive 5 minutes on our town centre.
Really positive stuff. Well done the council for trying something new and reducing business rates for 2 years. 80% reduction year one to help businesses get established.
With this and the uncovering of the roch the oil tanker is turning a corner.
Should have a town centre worth visiting in 6-12 months time.
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 10:26 - Aug 18 with 6914 views
The last meeting on Saturday 8 August was smallish but enthusiastic, with really good people coming on board and a mulititude of proposals, none of it unrealistic.
The next meeting is to start the voting of Dale Co-op board members so a bank account and constitution can be established. It's been set for Wednesday 3 September at 9am in Number One Riverside. Attendance is by "invitation only" but all this means is you've signed up for a share and are therefore eligible to vote. This happens by clicking a link on the website (or via an email) once your share is registered. If you can't make the meeting there will be other provision for voting.
The founder, Mark Burkitt, runs an IT company so the provision for online accessibility won't be a problem.
I'm as guilty as anyone for singing the "Rochdale's a shÃthole, we already know", but there's so much going for the town that it beggars belief that the town has ended up the way it has. There can't be many places where within 20 minutes drive you've got one of the busiest city centres in the country and also beautiful countryside. As a town, we're ideally situated for anywhere in the North of England - we've got the motorway on our doorstep and have got Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool all in less than an hour's drive. We've got Healey Dell and Hollingworth Lake on our door steps, and a town centre that has the potential to be the most picturesque this side of Chester. On a sporting front, side from ourselves, we have a thriving local cricket league (despite the split), with many of the teams doing some great community work with the kids. We've also got a number of great pubs.
Chuck iaffordable housing into that, and you'd think we had a recipe made in heaven.
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 12:46 - Aug 18 with 6335 views
Was anything mentioned about meetings being during work hours please? It's something I'm interested in giving time to but not sure work would let me miss the whole of Wednesday morning.
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 12:46 - Aug 18 with 6333 views
I'd add to that, the character of the people - those born and bred here or people settling here who've adopted our outlook on life - not saying that's a single homogeneous outlook but I've no doubt it exists.
Summat to do with the town nestling within wrap-around moorland with a gateway to the city, which I first felt when returning home from being a student in London. It breeds a certain independence and bloody-mindedness which everything that's good about Rochdale epitomises - the prime example being the Co-op movement.
Someone stop me before I wax-lyrical over my lunch.
It's a very important issue upthedale - and fully recognised that whenever meetings are held they will be inconvenient for some. It's a weekday because the key people who're seeking election to the prototype board (not all positions will be voted on) can make it - which seems a pretty key element.
Provision will be made via the website for voting if shareholders can't attend, and a cv of those seeking election is available.
It's something that will be given ongoing consideration - it's that type of group, responsive to it's membership as far as humanly possible.
Looking at the positives 20 mins on a train to Manchester.... By car Liverpool and Leeds an hour..... Magnificent countryside... The gateway to the Pennines.
Some cracking pubs too.
100% heading in the right directions... McDonalds jumped too soon!!!
My salary the same as my colleagues in Hampshire Surrey and the Home Counties and I recon I have one tenth there mortgage!!!
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 18:11 - Aug 18 with 5842 views
Just to clarify, the meeting on Wednesday 2nd (not 3rd) Sept is an interim meeting prior to the vote being taken. Apologies for any misleading info previously posted!
(Now I know how the club feels when it puts out info that causes confusion!)
wow a shoe bar and a new pound shop on mcdonalds site, forgive me for not feeling it just yet. the amount of money spent on 'regeneration' in past 10 years should have produced more than this.
We tried something similar in Wakefield. A few of us got together to form a co-op to bring and old building that had been empty for a decade back to life (a co-op building as it happens). 450 people raised £250,000 in shares and then went on to raise another £4m.
Fantastic, and I'll forward that link to Mark since one of the strands in the plan is to establish a wider community of like-minded people, although chances are he'll already be on the ball with this.
I like the Unityworks idea. I have been pondering the town centre problem for a while now and I can't see for the life of me where more shopping is a "good idea". looking 10 years down the road I can't see how shops as we know them now will still exist, certainly they will not employ many people and they will not be a reason for families to visit the town centre as we used to in the last century.
I believe that Rochdale has the opportunity to become the leisure hub of Greater Manchester but it requires the council to take some really big decisions and stop the small-time thinking that has dominated their ideas for so long.
We could open up every river in the Borough but the fact is no one is going to come to Rochdale to sit in an outdoor cafe in the rain simply to admire the view.
Another shopping mall will only have the effect of closing down one or maybe both of the current shopping centres with no discernible net gain and probably blighting the West end of the centre.
There are a number of more radical proposals that I believe would make more long-term sense including: A Halifax Piece Hall-type of area for start up businesses such as artisan bakers and cake makers, print shops, creative types of all hues where people with an idea can make a small-scale, affordable start to their business career. http://www.nepc.co.uk/BURTON/PROJECTS/edwardianheritage/edwardianheritage.htm
I believe Kingsway has been dreadfully handled in terms of there being no real attempt to turn in into a technology park capable of bringing hi-tech businesses into the area . It could have been turned into a small village with apartments , incubator units, solar / wind farm providing cheap electricity, hotels restaurants etc etc. Alas we got more warehouses.
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 14:54 - Aug 19 with 5295 views
All very good, but nothing in there that the Dale Co-op isn't just aware of, but will actively be working towards. People should get on board, and be part of the solution.
D_Alien, I'll take that as an invitation and maybe I will join you but unfortunately I am up to my neck being a school governor, friend of a park and business mentor to take much else on at the moment. You should probably consider getting a "grant for all" from the lottery to use as feasibility / marketing funding and maybe if you hold an evening meeting I will pop down sometime. Cheers, 49th
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 15:18 - Aug 19 with 5265 views
It's just a few clicks to get on board, 49th - you don't have to attend meetings, and I've posted the website in this thread.
If anything, you're behind the curve with your suggestions, but they're welcome nonetheless. All avenues are being explored, although the website mightn't give that impression, since we're determined to start at the grass roots and grow organically, without any overweening ambitions that will put the venture at risk (we wouldn't have Stewart Day on the board!)
Local residence isn't required HK_Dale, in fact, I'm not aware of any exclusion criteria - doubt the thought has entered anyone's head.
We have to reach a certain critical mass with demonstrable success on the smaller scale to attract higher-level funding (the type of funding that 49th might have been referring to) so for the time being that's what we're aiming for - one step at a time.
All are welcome to share and contribute. Those who can't afford the £100 share option will have an equal share if they can contribute 10 hours of their time at some stage; or both.
Grants for all can be acquired from the Big Lottery up to £10,000. You need a bank account and a constitutuion . The grants are intended to get small scale voluntary efforts off the ground or maintain existing groups. They would rather pay for a small scale initial feasability study than get embroiled in a venture which costs a lot but ultimately fails . Worth a read i expect.
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Rochdale - positive comments on the town - Granada reports on 21:19 - Aug 19 with 5048 views
so why respond then. People like me eh, you mean people that have the ability to see through thetosh the council spouts. I live here i shop here support the Dale home and away. The original thread stated it was great news that rochdale was featured on Granada. The new shops, just about make up for the ones that closed, including the council losing cash on the emporium. people like me......**** right off
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