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Tuesday 23 December 1980
Plea to Keep Burnley's Past For The Tourists
A plea for the preservation of the mill chimneys of Burnley as monuments to the industrial revolution and as potential tourist attractions, is made in a report from Save Britain's Heritage.
The report, the first in a series on northern towns, observes that in the past 20 years Burnley has tried hard to jettison its image as a mill town.
There is an acrimonious debate between those who want the remaining chimneys demolished at the earliest opportunity, and those who want to preserve them as symbols of the age when the town had 100,000 looms and produced more cotton fabric than any town in Europe.
Recently the council planning committee earmarked 15 chimneys as worthy of preservation, after the chief planning officer had reported that they were as important to Burnley as classical antiquities to Greece. Yet, according to the secretary of the Burnley Civic Trust, suggestions for preserving industrial buildings are usually met not by lack of interest but by active hostility.
The most contentious area is the so-called Weavers' Triangle, a group of buildings on the banks of the Leeds-Liverpool canal. Recently the council rejected a proposal that it should be designated a conservation area, partly because of fears about the possible cost.
Large numbers of pleasure boats use the canal, the report says. Burnley was once regarded as a part of the route which had to be endured rather than enjoyed but, with the growing public interest in Britain's industrial heritage, the Weavers' Triangle could become one of the most important tourist sights of the North.
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Mel
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