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> Happy Valley home > Civic Society home > Tourism
Civic Society proposal
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 Destination
Bollington!
Bollington is now a 'destination' on the tourist trail.
It's been a very slow process but we now have lots of reasons
for coming - walks, the canal, the Discovery Centre,
the café, historic buildings such as our cottages
and mills, all set in beautiful countryside. Works have been
carried out to improve many parts of town especially the historic
triangle of High Street, Water
Street and Palmerston
Street.
However, there is a shortage of the necessary support facilities
that make the difference between a place to visit and a place
that's really fun to visit and we must go again. Such things
as loos (only one), cafés
(the
Café Waterside
at Clarence Mill, another under development
in High Street), shops (decreasing in number, not tourism
related and usually closed out of normal business hours).
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 Things
are improving - just look at the super new signs (left) erected
in March 2007 which were specifically designed to help the
pedestrian find his/her way around town.
In March 2010 four new interpretation signs are to be erected,
one on the canal at Clarence mill, another at Adelphi mill,
and two on the Middlewood Way. These will also carry the
town map showing all the pubs, restaurants and cafés.
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Town Council Tourism Committee
A number of council members form this committee and they have tried to stimulate tourist related activities. They have been very successful with the annual Transport Extravaganzer held each year in September. But there is a need to promote everyday tourism.
In order to get the subject into discussion the first meeting
of the Civic Society in the autumn 2007 season received a presentation
on East Cheshire Tourism given by the then tourism
officer for Chester & Cheshire, Alice Ferguson.
A further meeting was held with Alice who brought a consultant
with her. Discussion and a walk around parts of the town led to
the consultant preparing a brief for a full project to define what
needs doing in the practical sense to improve the tourism offering
in Bollington.
This activity brought Bollington into the front line of the Cheshire
Gardens 08 celebrations with a very succesful weekend
event held at Clarence Mill on 7-8 June 2008 which sent a decorated
boat off to the annual Folk & Boat Festival at Middlewich.
The British Waterways heritage narrowboat Lindsay, decorated
overall by Chris Harrop and Heather Jackson, won
first prize for its beauty! The event was blessed by
the best weekend of weather we had in the whole summer and hundreds
of people turned out to enjoy the boat, the folk dancing and
the youth band performing on the waterside at Clarence Mill.
Large numbers visited the Discovery
Centre and the café had its best two days of
trade that year.
This is the type of event we need to see more of to bring visitors into Bollington and entertain them so that they will come again.
2009 saw another very successful Bollington Festival which brought
very large numbers of visitors to the town to enjoy 96 listed events
including the Festival Parade, the picnic in the park, and many
musical and artistic events in the big tent, as well as the artists'
trail, and so much more. These events saw a tremendous increase
in visitor to the town for the three weeks of the festival.
Alice also promoted the town through a new leaflet listing the
places to eat, drink and stay in and around Bollington. She provided
entries in various tourism leaflets listing places to visit, and
she ensured that Bollington held a number of events during the
Silk Triangle week in 2009. We are very sorry that Alice has left
CEC in 2009 to become an independent tourism consultant - she did
a very good job for Bollington which was so much appreciated
by us.
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