South Yorkshire Times June 7, 1969
Wombwell’s Bold Mark on the Shopping Map
Wombwell is building a bright new image. Gleam-modern buildings are springing up to intersperse with the old.
Among ageing, blackened parts that will be with us for some time yet there, beats the real heart of the town. This is especially true of the commercial quarters.
Wombwell tradespeople pride themselves always on giving first-class service, irrespective of their premises.
“Bulldozer treatment” was advocated 21 years ago by Wombwell Chamber of Trade as the only cure for the town’s economic ills. Local business-man, Mr. Sydney Bailey, then President of the Chamber, said, “Until we get a better shopping centre we shall never make progress.”
His “prescription” seems to have been effective. Its implementation after the initial diagnosis took time. There were ambitious and abortive schemes, including a move to widen the hazardous High Street. But finally the edges of the problem are being nibbled.
The Leeds-Sheffield motorway has brought a surge of drivers cutting off from it through Wombwell to reach surrounding districts, and as they drive through, they can see the signs of its progress. Cheery, airy new business premises rub sparkling shoulders with less fortunate neighbours. Flower feature plots line parts of High Street.
Although for a long time after the end of the second world war, the town’s heart seemed to be failing, its pulse rate was deteriorating, and it appeared to be dying a natural death, it might now be said to have undergone a “transplant„ operation.
No longer “marking time”, it is now very much “alive and kicking”, with many ambitious schemes having come to fruition and others being in the pipeline.
Brand new business premises have been erected at one end of the High Street from which old buildings are demolished, and traders still in properties, which structurally are the same as half a century ago have spent time, initiative and well-earned money in giving greatly improved and up-to-date interiors.
Only this week one local businessman announced that his High Street premises, modernised to a great extent only ten years ago, is to undergo another ‘face lift”, with extensions, improvements, and even more modern frontage. In keep-with most other tradespeople in the town, he is attempting to give improved service, bigger and better displays, and a greatly extended range of merchandise. “The customer is always right — and well worth looking after,” seems to be a maxim which Wombwell business people have constantly in mind.
New exchange
An indication of the way Wombwell is growing in business and commerce is the fact that a new, extensive telephone exchange is now in course of construction in Snowden Terrace, Wombwell. This will replace a small brick building in Littlefield Lane. Wombwell, and its more efficient service should do a let toward making the town’s mark on the map a little bolder. This new building is embraced as part of the new trading development at the far end of the High Street, being situated on a “service road” running behind newly-opened shop units.
The town has undergone complete metamorphis since its straw-chewing rustic days. Older members of the community can still remember the time when what was the main road contained little more than farmsteads stretching from one end of the town to the other, and even the most cynical will have to readily admit that life has moved on since then. The town’s hey-day came, perhaps, with the sinking of several collieries within the area and, though there now appears to be a recession in the coal industry, this is by no means having a dampening effect on the outlook of those who provide for our shopping needs.
It anything, they are showing even more determination in their bid to make Wombwell attractive. Harvest is being reaped, in that by sparing no efforts in providing nothing but the best they are attracting shoppers who a few years ago might have taken buses to the larger towns and cities.
Whether housed in ultramodern High Street premises, or in premises away from the centre of the town, Wombwell tradespeople deserve full support.