It’s the thriving, picturesque Lancashire market town surrounded by green and pleasant land – but it’s also a place where some fear to tread.
At first glance, an array of cosy, chocolate box style independent shops jostles with other shops in the town centre. Among them is the picture postcard perfect traditional sweet shop, Grandad Jim’s Traditional Sweet Shoppe. Stepping through the door feels like stepping back in time as you marvel at row upon row of colourful sweets in jars, toys and a gorgeous, old fashioned ambience and aroma that wafts around instantly.
The view from Raz’s Ark pet store is somewhat mitigated, in comparison. A shop assistant, who, tellingly, declines to be named, tells us that there are good and bad days, and they see pretty much all of them, being positioned slap bang in the town centre. The man tells us: “I don't like coming into Chorley to be honest; there are too many people knocking around. I have to come in to get measured for a suit, and it's a small town; it's where I come from. If you go out and see the improvements that have been made, there's a lot of stuff - Astley Hall and so on. I used to live in Chorley but I prefer where I live now, which is Whittle.
His distraught mum told us previously: “The police’s hands are tied.. because of all the red tape and they don’t want to criminalise children and the youth offenders’ team are working with them but at the end of the day, if they’re behaving like criminals, then they should be treated like criminals.” She added: “These kids are just running the town and this is our next generation of adults…Act like adults: stay away from my son.
Yet at Gregg's, sales assistant Harley Calvert, 19, tells us: “Antisocial behaviour is not an issue; people take it too far. If kids are shouting, it's not anti-social, and it’s about as far as it goes. I think it's taking it a bit too far. There are many criticisms - I don't think anything is wrong.
Also among its major assets was mining, with the town boasting the biggest pit outside Wigan. Chorley also played a massive role in the Second World War through a huge munitions factory on the site of what is now modern day Buckshaw VIllage nearby, said to have manufactured some of the infamous ‘bouncing bombs’ used by the Dambusters raid of 1943.
“I love it; we've come today to Chorley, and we love the lots of little independent shops. It's lovely. It's clean. It's friendly and it’s good for transport, with lots of independent shops as well. The transport’s excellent - you can get from Bolton on the bus to Blackpool in Southport and Charlie. We've had a lovely day.”