Tony Porter Ponders: Its 2025 and things looking up for Wigan aren't they?

Happy New Year. I am genuinely excited for this year with some major developments being completed or near to completion. Stack should be open late summer with live entertainment and street food will bring many back into the town centre, with Millgate Car Park right next door and a stones throw from the car parks near the Premier Inn, this should be popular with out of towners too, who will hopefully take in the Grand Arcade Shopping centre and the many other shops around Wigan. Then the New Market Hall should be near completion, I fear it won’t be open by the end of the year, but I expect a building completed and ready for the suffering market traders who have waited far too long for this delayed project to be ready for spring 2026. Will Haigh Hall have been completed and reopened? I am not sure about that, but I trust works will be continuing on this historic structure. Eckersley Mill, by the end of 2025 might be ready for people to use, and the developers can move on to phase 2 of this privately funded huge project. The houses in Marsh Green will be occupied in a few months, hopefully with families who are currently desperate for a home of their own. Finally, the multistorey car park for the hospital will be well underway and when completed will free up the one in the town centre, behind Iceland, for public use again. As for Wigan Pier I fear little will change this year, but one never knows.

Nationally, Keir and his cabinet will be gone soon, replaced by? The choice is not great looking at the various publicly known Labour MPs, I was a fan of Wes Streeting, but recently I have become less sure. Keir and Co having postponed some local elections in May due to ‘boundary changes’, not mentioned by the BBC, Wigan is unaffected as there were no plans for elections this year for the council. To me this postponement, some until 2027, sounds a bit dictatorship as does the ‘Two Teir Justice’ we have seen in recent months. Will people be pardoned for being jailed for nasty tweets while people who throw object at politicians get suspended sentences? I am speaking about the woman who threw milkshake over Nigal Farage, not going inside, while people with no previous misdemeanours were sentenced to jail for offending people online. I am not a huge fan of Farage, but I feel we must protect politicians of all parties from abuse and make sure people realise there are consequences to acts of violence. The farmers, pensioners and businesses will continue to protest over the various changes imposed last year, remember, Keir did say vote Labour Vote Change.

Internationally things are going to get interesting with Donald Trump back in the White House and stopping the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, fixing the USAs migrant crisis, it will be a very different era. He threatened to take the UK Labour party to court for allowing its members to go to America and campaign for Kamala Harris, saying its outside interference. However, it looks like his new BBF, Elon Musk, might be making huge donations to his other BFF Mr Farage and ReformUK, and he is OK with that interference?