threegee

No other town has this amount of free parking so conveniently placed. The ones at the West end of the Front Street are quite pretty too. And.. before the disparaging remarks about well that no one uses them because there's nowt to do, nowhere to shop - that's would be a gross exaggeration.

Plentiful UNCROWDED pubs would be a plus to a lot of people. Don't you mean sun parasols? :D

I Am the Walrus.

A self-defeating post; you just did give them a mention! It's all to easy to snipe and throw out one-liners, but there's nothing at all to stop you correcting this yourself. Go collect some real information, photos, etc. Do the best job you can and I will see that it gets tidied up by pro's and given the exposure it deserves. With this you have credibility. Without it you are just an angry young man tilting at windmills!

Best explanation I've heard so far. But it's always been like that - since the time when only the wealthy had an ox cart to get to Morpeth!

Hadly the point, it's about personal feelings and choices. I'd bet the sheer number of pubs in Bedders marks it out from the crowd though!

Because they obey the (outdated) law on closing days, which is supposed to be enforced by WDC.

No, but the wider implications of how government handles retailing is! IMHO interference and mishandling by politicians has destroyed whole communities, and wreaked plague on our countryside. It has also cost the country billions! In the case of our Town there's a particular case to be answered by certain local politicians. They are far too frightened to come on here and discuss the matter lest they offend the party bosses in Westminster, or say something which will be picked up by the opposition or national press.

We've had a few delicatessens over the years. Smart one next to the PO when I last looked. There's also the outfit at Sleekburn growing/selling organic veg., not to mention the mini-brewery there. Caterers operating from private houses, the bakery at the station (sadly closed his Front Street shop, but you can't blame him with the attitude of the WDC to small business). At least two small butchers. A lady who makes cakes to order. The odd small fruit and veg shop still trading, and doubtless a few more non-chain suppliers of fresh goods I've yet to discover.

Sounds insane, but competitive forces are (mostly) working in the UK. In parts of Southern Europe you pay two to three times more per killowat - which makes UK electricity look VERY cheap! Someone in Otterburn hasn't been doing their job studying the small print, and then chosing the optimum supplier.

Maybe and maybe not. At the end of the day you can't buck the market, but you can educate it. Specialist suppliers would still survive, even thrive. What it would do is to allow small traders to bow out gracefully if the competition got too hot. It would encourage innovation instead of the lowest-common-denominator culture we now have. The same mindset which is the root cause of our painfully regular factory-farming driven crises. Even under current anticompetitive conditions we have a few specialist food suppliers in Bedlington. .. and that proves my point!

The Sunday trading debate has been running since the 1960's - at least! The religious angle is - and has always been - a red herring. It's all to do with outdated trades union attitudes going back far longer. I don't even think that the big shop (that can afford the extra labour) / little shop (that may be put out of business) is even valid anymore. Lots of smaller businesses, often run by industrious immigrants, have disproved this. Remember "Open All Hours"? Such trading restrictions, including local authority enforcement of local "closing days", are long overdue to be scrapped. I doubt that they've been properly enforced for decades anyway. One thing we DO need to do is to put a permanent and total stop to out-of-town, often "green field", shopping developments. It's that that has killed the center of Bedlington and hundreds of towns besides. Megastores should operate by the same rules as smaller traders, and that includes zoning. If the market demands huge stores then it should be forced to pay the same cost per square meter as smaller traders have to pay, and/or buy those smaller traders out at a fair price.

Funnily - I thought that it might be you!

Start a poll there then. We'll be bound by the democratic vote of all the chat forum users. p.s. I will be voting with monsta - against!

Because: monsta wouldn't like it!

It has been part of this software since those were even thought of. The point is it enables members to rate the worth of a subject. It's not about post count it's about content!

A bit more imagination than the last try. But clearly not up to the standard of the Guinnessy one. We'll regard it as a test post - for now!

You can now instantly rate topics in this Forum. A software upgrade to the BB is due real soon too.

You can now instantly rate topics in this Forum. A software upgrade to the BB is due real soon too.

http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/index.php?showtopic=1104

Now that you mention it, they had those too! Ronnie Gibson is name that rings a bell. The same Gibson possibly? Muters indeed! Pop factory at the station. Careful what you say about the family pop as the name lives on. Nice people the Muter kids, though I've lost touch. Yes, Woods soft drinks too, but weren't they Morpeth or somewhere else locally?

What about? - LIKE: What a cracking online community it has! (for those wet Winter nights) Sure you wouldn't like to moderate it to keep it "visitor friendly"?

A short survey shows that many one-shot visitors to the site only want a snapshot of the place. Sometimes to buy property or rent a house here, or for other reasons. Apart from the fine contributions to the Gallery we really don't do this because: The Members Forums are too busy with other gossip. The Member's Forums can't be searched by the major search engines. The usual threads are simply too long and convoluted. Our own search isn't much use unless you know the key words to search on already. They probably don't want the hassle of joining for what might be a one-off visit. The moderators need an easier job of watching for misinformation too - particularly important here. Be honest but be fair to the old place! i.e. not too many gripes. Enjoy! P.S. We need a mature moderator (without any warnings) for this forum too. Please PM me.

If only they could pronounce it! Even the BBC has trouble with it these days - well, especially the BBC! New found popularity nothing to do with a millenium of fascinating history, but a kid's book made into a film there. Such is modern culture!

I remember Sadie Barnes at the Market Place shop. She was perhaps the last of the line - though I think married into the Barnes family. She had a good business head, and it seemed the business didn't survive long after her demise. In the 1950's / 1960's they had branches in the Market Place, Rothsea Terrace, the Station, and more The wholesale arm probably supplied many smaller local business. Another famous Bedlington family name for the history books.