Wigan 2024 news review Part II: tough times and golden memories

No year is without its downs as its ups and that has certainly been true of this one for the borough as some residents face hardships and others family tragedies. But there has also been much to celebrate, especially in sport.

July

Rugby league has always had an evangelical side and its latest bid to spread the word of this great sport involved the announcement that Wigan Warriors and Warrington Wolves were going to be contesting a Super League match in Las Vegas this coming year.

The March 1 fixture in Sin City will open a four-game festival showcasing the sport to our trans-Atlantic cousins and news of it prompted a stampede for airline tickets and hotel bookings which were almost 300 per cent higher than the norm.

The match has been described as “potentially groundbreaking for British rugby league.”

Wigan was named the worst town in the UK for food hygiene.

The towns and cities across the country that score highest and lowest for their food hygiene ratings were revealed in a report from online training provider High Speed Training which had analysed Food Standards Agency ratings of 0 to 5 from food establishments across the country.

The lowest rated town/city was Wigan, with an average score of 3.92. The borough also recorded the largest rating fall in the country from 2023, losing 0.29.

After a 26-year gap, local lad Richard Ashcroft returned to perform in Wigan again.

That massive Verve concert at Haigh Hall in 1998 has attained legendary status, and many a fan went home with treasurable memories of the solo artist’s two gigs at Robin Park Arena this July too.

Other big-name acts performing at Robin Park in the summer included Noel Gallagher and the High Flying Birds, plus Wigan’s own The Lathums.

It has since been announced that Ashcroft will support Oasis on the UK and Ireland leg of their tour when they re-form next year.

August

Fears that Wigan was to become the latest battleground for anti-immigration criminal violence happily proved unfounded.

The town was one of more than 20 singled out by far right extremists for a “demonstration” one August evening with the Support for Wigan Arrivals Project (SWAP) hub on Penson Street named as the focal point.

Earlier demonstrations across the country, held in the wake of the fatal stabbings of three little girls at a party in Southport, had degenerated into all-out riots, prompting a huge number of arrests.

But while a few protesters did attend in Wigan, the event passed off peacefully.

Wigan schoolboy Nathan Chesworth, who ended up in intensive care with a collapsed lung due to vaping happily celebrated a full recovery – and the GCSE results he’d hoped for.

At the beginning of the year, life was looking very uncertain for the Shevington 16-year-old after he needed emergency surgery following complications from a severe chest infection.

He discovered later that his medical crisis had been due to vaping – a habit he immediately then kicked – and missed many weeks of study in the build-up to this summer’s exams.

But he pulled off a remarkable turn-around in fortunes both in terms of health and his future job prospects and achieved the grades he needed to get on a Wigan and Leigh College plumbing course.

Atherton’s Keely Hodgkinson fulfilled her enormous potential by cruising to Olympic 800m gold in Paris.

The middle distance runner, who at 22 could dominate her discipline for years, was the only British athlete to top the winners’ podium at this summer’s games, despite huge success for Team GB in other sports.

She is also hotly tipped to win this year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

September

There was devastating personal and eonomic news as Wigan workers were told their food factory was to close early next year.

A total of 750 staff's jobs look set to be axed as Bakkavor Meals pulls out of Ince.

Bosses say that the operation there is no longer profitable, even if the site didn't need significant investment as well, which it does.

The council and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy have been involved in negotiations trying to mitigate the damage, save some jobs and find new work for those made redundant.

A Wigan mum whose son suffered a devastating brain haemorrhage as a little boy said she had “lost him for a second time” after he died aged 21.

Rhys Priestley had been a happy and healthy youngster when he suffered a massive bleed caused by an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) when aged five.

It left him unable to speak or move and turned his loving family’s world upside down.

Thereafter mum Adele Brown had been his full-time carer, dedicating innumerable hours to keeping him as happy and as comfortable as possible.

But his health had been deteriorating and in September he died at home in Scholes, just a few days short of his 22nd birthday.

A cocaine-addicted Wigan detective who stole drugs with a street value of almost £400k from police stores and supplied them to criminals was jailed for 19 years.

Andrew Talbot, 54, formerly a Greater Manchester Police detective constable and from Findlay Street in Leigh, conspired with convicted drug dealer Keith Bretherton, 50, to sell the stolen drugs, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

The police chief who brought them to justice said that it was one of the most shocking cases of corruption her team had ever uncovered.

The investigation into Talbot, by GMP’s anti-corruption unit, began almost five years ago after he dropped a small bag of cocaine outside his daughter’s primary school.

October

Neil Crook, whose teenaged son Alex drowned at Scotman’s Flash earlier in the year, launched a life-saving safety campaign.

He and Alex’s step-mum Lynnette want to raise money for danger signage and life-saving equipment to be installed at open water sites where youngsters are known to swim (there was none at the flash where the 15-year-old lost his life).

And the Ashton couple also want to go round schools, urging those that don’t have swimming lessons in the curriculum to reinstate them, and spreading the word to individual youngsters about learning to swim. Awareness for Alex.

And another fund-raiser was launched after Hindley 11-year-old Cooper Foster was diagnosed with a rare and inoperable brain tumour.

Loved ones have not given up on further treatment and so their GoFundMe page is aimed both at paying for any more therapy he might undergo as well as making his life more comfortable after some incredibly tough months.

Some of it is going towards what his aunty Cathy Foster calls a “man cave” at his Hindley home: a modified outhouse which will allow for some privacy for Cooper who is unable to get upstairs to his old bedroom.

Wigan Warriors were back in the news yet again after securing an astonishing quadruple for the 2024 season by winning the Super League Grand Final against Hull KR at Old Trafford.

They became only the fifth side in rugby league history to win every major trophy on offer to them in a single season and the first to do so during the Super League era.

November

The multi-million-pound transformation of Haigh Hall was rocked by controversy when Wigan Council parted company with artistic directors Al and Al.

The pair were greatly upset by being told their services were no longer required, it led to the withdrawal of co-operation of from the family of the late Wigan artist Theodore Major so his works will no longer be shown there, and expressions of disappointment were also issued by The Earl of Crawford whose family seat Haigh Hall once was.

But the council, while acknowledging and thanking Al and Al for their contributions, said they were just two members of a creative and committed project team working hard to realise the authority’s ambition for Haigh, and it was confident of the project continuing full steam ahead.

A retired Wigan teacher with incurable bone marrow cancer spoke out in support of assisted dying.

Ashton grandfather Brian Griffin is fearful that once the positive effects of a second stem cell transplant wears off there will only be chemotherapy and palliative care left as options and, after seeing a relative suffer horribly when their palliative care ceased working, he fully supported MP Kim Leadbeater’s parliamentary bill. He felt it had plenty of checks and balances in it to prevent anyone being browbeaten into taking the euthanasia path when they otherwise might not do.

The bill passed its first stage just days after the interview with Brian but faces many more hurdles before it could become law.

Plans were submitted for the former Wallpaper Supplies building on Library Street to be given a makeover, its upper floors turned into apartments and a new creative space developed at the rear.

It is one of many schemes to breathe new life into the town centre. Planning approval has already been given for a food hall to be created on the ground floor and basement of the former Evolution bar on King Street, with more apartments above.

Repopulating the centre while increasing hospitality as retail declines are seen as key to Wigan's future economic success.

December

The 40th anniversary of the murder of Leigh schoolgirl Lisa Hession was marked with a fresh appeal for witnesses.

The 14-year-old was sexually assaulted and strangled in an alleyway just yards from her home in December 1984 and, despite, a colossal police investigation, no-one has ever answered for the crime.

However cold case officers say they will not give up their quest to find Lisa’s killer.

It was an astonishing night for Wigan borough at the annual BBC Sports Review of the Year ceremony. Not only did Keely Hodgkinson prove the bookies right in being favourite for the top award, but her mentors Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows were jointly named coach of the year and the all conquering Wigan Warriors were named team of the year! With darts sensation Luke Littler, who lives down the road in Warrington and stays regularly in Wigan for tournaments winning the young sports personality prize (and coming second for the overall title) and The Isle of Man’s Mark Cavendish winning a lifetime achievement award, the Nortth West was on top of the world.

No December is complete without the annual World Pie-Eating Championships from Harry’s Bar in Wigan. As ever it was dogged by light-hearted controversy: this time when two old stagers from the contest were disqualified for eating too slowly, their excuses being that the pies were too tasty to wolf down! Just to prove that Wiganers don’t win all sporting titles, this year’s trophy went to a contestant from Bury.