I SYMPATHISE with the many SAM letters I have read recently regarding the demise of Altrincham in recent years.

Resident Arthur Johnson hit the nail on the head in his letter (SAM, March 25) by pointing out that the reshuffle of county boundaries some 25 years ago was the start of the decline.

Towns like Altrincham began to lose their roots, pride and identity at that time - no longer did you pay your rates at the town hall and your ground rent at the Stamford estate office, and no more were the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker your town councillors as a matter of pride rather than for financial gain.

Sadly gone are the days when it was a proud engineering and building town, where people lived from one generation to another and where pride in the town's football club would be equal to that for City or United.

Although I have not been a resident since 1981 I still regard myself as a 'towny', having lived there for 46 years as generations of my family did before me.

I am dismayed by what I see now - half the town centre is open space and car parking where once people lived and the other half seems to be office blocks which should have no place in a thriving shopping centre.

But I believe there is now a plan to build yet another huge office development when they knock down the town's general hospital - but it's never too late to stand up and say enough is enough.

Peter Hennerley, Brooklyn Place, Cheadle.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.