More on Leyland Cross
dampslad	A kind note from Peter Houghton asking me if the Historical Society could publish my ramblings on the old shops prompts me to tell the story behind the story of the Cross redevelopment of the 1960s. Told to me some years later by a local concillor when I was an Evening Post reporter, it was about the rivalry between two officers of Leyland Urban District Council in their desire to leave their mark on the town. Surveyor Frank Howe was the one who wanted to by-pass the Cross and preserve the old village centre. But his plan ran into the sand for several reasons. Clerk Bill Godsell was for wholesale demolition and redevelopment in partnership with the Bolton firm Metrolands. His vision was never fully realised, either. Howe's plan began with the construction of Lancastergate through what had been the council yard onto Broadfield Drive. His idea was to link it with Fox Lane to give traffic coming up from Seven Stars an alternative route onto Towngate. The trouble was there were only two ways to do this - by making through routes of either the lane leading to Woodlea Junior School or the leafy and unadopted cul-de-sac that was then Forestway. The school route raised obvious safety fears and Forestway then contained little but some of the nicest and most expensive detached houses in the area. Neither route was deemed possible. Another part of the plan was to turn traffic coming along Towngate towards the Cross into William Street and via a new road across what we all called Church Road Rec (later more grandly named St Andrew's Green) coming out onto Church Road at Stanning Street. Two snags to this one - the terms of Stanning's bequest of the "rec" to the town specifying its use in perpetuity for the recreation of locals and the need to widen the junction of Church Road and Stanning Street by moving the war memorial. Part Three almost came off. Howe persuaded the developers of Vicarsfield estate to build Vicarsfield Road straighter, wider than the other estate roads - and right up to the boundary of the old Mayfield, where for many years it stopped abruptly. His idea was to carry it over the Mayfield and bring it out in Church Road so that traffic coming up Worden Lane to the cross could be diverted along it. That came unstuck when Leyland Motors craftily bought the Mayfield from under the council's nose and would have none of it. So the old UDC went instead for the Godsell scheme. The businesses along Towngate from Church Road to William Street were bought by Metrolands and the council in partnership, reputedly for huge sums. It was rumoured that Arthur Woods' tiny cobblers shop went for £30,000 - at a time when the new detached houses in Worden Lane sold for just £3,700! Only chemist Ronald Baker stuck out, and for several years his was the only shop left as demolition and then building work took place around it. It was said he was finally given two of the shop units in the new development, fitted out to his specification and complete with a first floor flat just to shift him. But soon, the Godsell plan fell victim to changing times. We got the market, the new Co-op and the small parade of shops next door, two of which remain alongside Tesco. But Phase Two came unstuck first because of a government moritorium on council building and then by the declaration of the Central Lancashire New Town. The delays caused the focus of shopping in Leyland to move naturally to Hough Lane. By the mid-70s, Godsell and Howe had both retired as the UDC was subsumed into South Ribble. That council's attempt to revive the Cross as a shopping centre by building the larger supermarket and shopping arcade only just went ahead in the face of political oppositon by councillors who preferred shopping development on the old BTR site. But it can hardly be regarded as a success. Ironically, time seems to have favoured both plans. Lancastergate does now lead via West Paddock into Forestway and Fox Lane, and traffic does turn up William Street and find its way onto Church Road if by a slightly different route than Howe envisaged. And the old Mayfield has been built over. As to Godsell's grand schemes, you could argue that they've finally come off - thanks to Tesco. COLIN DAMP
William R	Colin, You have filled in a lot of gaps for me in your Posting, I always wondered about how Leyland became South Ribble. What does it embody, and what happened to the original Leyland Hundred? Fill me in. Regards, Bill.
dampslad	SOUTH RIBBLE - well your talking to the right chap. I was the idiot who came up with the name when I was Local Government Correspondent of the Lancs Evening Post (c 1974-77)! To start of with your query re the old "Leyland Hundred", I always understood that "Hundreds" were ancient sub-divisions of Lancashire based on 100 landholdings. I don't know exactly how old this system was or how many "Hundreds" Lancashire was divided into, but I now there was a Salford Hundred as well. Jump to the Industrial Revolution and the Local Government Act of the 1890s, the principle of which was that urban and rural areas should be governed differently. Villages (e.g. Euxton, Eccleston) got Parish Councils under a Rural District Council (Chorley RDC). Slightly bigger towns had no Parishes within them but got Urban District Councils (Leyland, Walton-le-Dale). Bigger still (Chorley) had Municipal Borough status with a mayor and corporation. But all these were under County Hall when it came to education, highways, libraries and later social services. The biggest (Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Blackpool, Blackburn) were officially "County Boroughs" and completely independent of County Hall. Jump now to the Local Government Act 1974. It created Metropolitan Counties around Liverpool and Manchester and in the rest of Lancs abolished County Boroughs and did away with the urban/rural distinction leaving 14 "districts" of equal status under County Hall. Thus Chorley Borough took in the old Chorley Rural District plus Withnell and Adlington UDCs. Preston amalgamated with Fulwood UDC and Preston Rural north of the Ribble, while Leyland and Walton-le-Dale joined up with Preston Rural SOUTH of the Ribble - hence South Ribble. It was left to the new councils to decide whether to petition HM for borough status - just a nominal change, no more power. Most did, hence the Mayor of South Ribble. Later the Boundaries Commission aligned district and parliamentary boundaries and South Ribble got its own MP as well. Colin Damp Plymouth
noel	Colin I'm staggered by your knowledge of Leyland and in particular the shops around Towngate, that is a really intersting piece of work. Were you on the council , guess that's a silly question as you obviously were. Whilst I don't shop at Tesco ( Sainsburys through and through ) I do like the way the Cross has been presented with the cobbled road either side. It is quite something to walk around Tesco car park after dark and see the Church and Cross illuminated. [img]http://usa.venus.co.uk/weed/agifs/images83/owl.gif[/img]

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