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by Stephen Fitzsimons
I was thrilled to attend the Active Cheshire awards at the fabulous Chester race course which helped highlight the importance of celebrating success.
The evening was made even more memorable with several Warrington award winners, including the Wolves Foundation, Disability Partnership and Worldwide’s very own Gary Skentelbery.
It reinforced the importance of celebrating success and this is equally crucial for the town as a whole. The Challenge Cup is on its own grand tour of Warrington as the Wire bask in the glory of that victory over the Saints because the club know about the feel good factor.
This also applies to business and the economy. We recently failed to convince central government that our town centre was struggling enough to warrant £10m from the Future High Street Fund. However, we have been earmarked for the Stronger Towns Fund which would actually be much higher at £25m. It was therefore a positive message that led to the potential extra investment.
Of course we need to focus on the things that require our assistance such as improving opportunities for residents in the inner wards and bringing life back to places like Bridge Street and Sankey Street.
However, we also need to shout loudly about our good news when it arrives. Another 117,000 sq ft has been taken at Omega as the park becomes unrecognisable from hosting just one lonely Royal Mail operation 10 years ago. Warrington Primark is officially the best performing store outside London which is a credit to the efforts of the local team and also to residents for continuing to put their faith in places like Golden Square.
FDR Law have just received recognition from the Legal 500 as they take their place amongst some of the best law firms in the UK. The positive stories continue to appear – we just need to share them.
Some say it was Disraeli who first stated that what Manchester does today, the world does tomorrow. Come to Warrington because the chances are we did it yesterday – we’ve just not told anyone!
