I echo everything said but it'll never happen. Far too many foreigners around here now but a section of the local kids are more worrying for me.



No regard for the town, the people that live in it, and don't want a job.

It is a myth Keith.

Spot on Toadstool.



It is way too easy to blame the immigrants - and the benefits claimants etc etc.



This is what the 1% (who own 95% of the wealth) want you to do. It distracts your attention so that they can go on bleeding the public purse dry with their off shore accounts / trust funds / privatisation schemes / golden goodbyes as reward for failure / bank bailouts / inflated expenses claims / other tax dodging schemes etc etc. Whatever the immigrants and benefits bill cost us is a drop in the ocean compared to the real rip off merchants.



And we've always had immigrants in Leigh. In our class at X11 Apostles fifty years ago we had names like Jezerski, Czuplak, Luchenko, Dilajonas, Pytlascinski, Haladji out of a class of 30 (and that's only those I can remember).

True but most of those names were relatives of people who had fought / worked for this country

Like I said earlier I have a shop in LEIGH and find it very very frustrating to see the demise of the town centre. If I didn't have a shop in the town centre I wouldn't come in to the depressing town at all unless I really had to.Oh and I've lived in LEIGH for over 50 years and just can't beLEIGHve how It's being left to rot when we have a front bench MP representing this town.

I was born and brought up in Plank Lane and have always been a lover of Leigh. However I think it is absolutely stupid to blame Wigan for all our ills. The problems highlighted above are symptomatic of our society and are not a result of being part of Wigan. Wigan has always been an excellent local authority which has been recognised both nationally and internationally. When it was created as a local authority the old Wigan borough was in a minority and all the other areas of the borough had ,and still have, the casting vote on policy etc.

Agreed not all our ills, Samwilly but it seems to me that public spending in Wigan town centre, which is as thriving a place as virtually any in the country, has come at the expense of Leyth, Atherton, Tyldesley, Golborne etc.



There was an article in "Metro Life" a few months ago where they were bragging they'd had a million pounds from the Heritage Lottery Fund to be spent on further smartening up Wigan town centre. I saw my a*** with that and fired an email straight off to them saying "Well whoop de doo, more public money spent in Wigan - well where's ours, where's Atherton's etc?"



Three guesses whether they published it.

Are you suggesting every person who is Leigh born works hard and all immigrants are claiming benefits ?



I don't think we should steryotype anyone just because of where they happen to have been born.



Maybe I am missing your point.

Well I am not a young man anymore but we have had immigration into this country and emigration since I was a little lad.



I remember the late Enoch Powell arranging large immigration into the UK of West Indians to do jobs British people did not want and that was in the fifties when he was employment minister.



I also remember the mass relocation of Asians to the UK from Uganda when Idi Amin was Dictator of Uganda.



For me I don't see immigration as a good or bad thing as it is a fact of life for most countries with developed economies.



Through the course of my life I have met people from various countries and have quite a few friends from and in other countries. It is not ones nationality that matters to most' I think it is down to the way people conduct themselves.

On a per person basis, immigrants from Eastern Europe contribute more in tax and consume less in public services than the UK average.



This isn't a myth....

House of Parliament Monday 2nd September

The house 'Took Note' of European Union Document No 9124/13 namely a draft directive designed to prevent discrimination against EU nationals seeking work in other member states.

'Took Note' means that the document was debated by our politicians for exactly ZERO seconds !!!

The British Government will be required to provide ''adequate judicial or administrative means of redress to EU immigrants who can show that they have suffered discrimination, ie a tax payer funded compensation scheme. It will also have to designate a body or bodies for promotion and support of equal treatment.

This means a taxpayer funded quango to help EU workers bidding to beat British workers to job vacancies and make sure that their family members can fully access our welfare state.

The final substantive duty contained in the draft is for Britain to ''disseminate information on free movement rights'' that is to actively let EU workers know that they are more than welcome to come and compete for jobs.

All this attracted not a word of scrutiny from our Lib Dem / Labour / Conservative reps in the Commons.

FIGURES ISSUED UP TO MARCH S SHOW THAT THE EUROZONE CRISIS HAS LED TO A BIG UPSURGE IN MIGRANTS ARRIVING FROM SPAIN (+50%) GREECE(+44%)PORTUGAL(+43%) FROM JANUARY 2014 THESE SO CALLED EURO REFUGEES WILL BE SUPLEMENTED BY A TIDAL WAVE OF MIGRANTS FOR ROMANIA AND BULGARIA, ALL KEEN TO EXPLOIT THEIR NEW UNRESTRICTED ACCESS TO OUR WELFARE SYSTEM.



FOOD FOR THOUGHT ?

Again, sorry to let the facts get in the way of a good headline but there is no "unrestricted access to our welfare system" -



UK law



- For contributory benefits, such as contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, entitlement is based on whether a claimant has satisfied the contribution requirements and other conditions for the benefit, regardless of nationality.



- For income-related benefits, such as Income-Based Jobseekers Allowance, however, all claimants must satisfy the so-called Habitual Residence Test before they can claim means-tested benefits. The Habitual Residence Test has two elements: a legal right to reside and an objective assessment of habitual residence. A person has a ‘right to reside’ if they:



> are a British Citizen or have the right of abode in the UK; or



> have leave to remain in the UK under UK Immigration rules; or



> have a right to reside under EU law



This is much stricter than, say, Germany or The Netherlands, so much so that the EU is challenging it but is unlikely to be able to overturn the policy.



Which is why, as I said earlier, EU immigrants are net contributors to the Treasury coffers!