WORK is continuing apace on the new Bridge Street Quarter and hopefully the temporary market will come into play in 2017.

But if you ever had call to wander down one of our most ancient thoroughfares on a Saturday night you’d consider grabbing a wrench and giving the contractors a hand.

Rest easy, this isn’t the annual Daily Mail full-colour-brochure-for-teen-drinking-down-Lower Bridge-Street-style harrumph.

And it certainly doesn’t impugn the sterling efforts of the likes of The Feathers, The Blue Bell, Cafe Caruso and even The Hop Pole to add some vibrancy to our central avenue.

That stretch between Rylands Street and Market Gate had no fewer than four beggars in dismal shop doorways on a single occasion recently.

You thought it was fairly desperate in the daytime, with only Hancock and Wood, Relate and Cash Generator holding fort.

Only McDonald’s and Burger King are fronting up at the weekend and fair play to them for that.

Perhaps this is the flip side of bidding to become a city. An extra few thousand homes might be squeezed within our borders but you can’t become a true metropolis without a steady quota of vagrants.

This isn’t to denigrate the spare-change seekers. The old adage about being two pay packets from the streets has more of a ring of truth about it with every passing day.

(Is there a rough sleeper count in Warrington, with James Lee House’s provisions? I’d be genuinely curious if anyone has up-to-date figures.) I’m really itching to be told that some actual takers have been found for the myriad empty premises along the middle of Bridge Street, so we can regenerate the whole area, not just become a magnet for the multiples.

  •  Thinking of Rylands Street, there’s a similar shot in the arm required down that arm of the town centre too.

Once it was the continuation, along Suez Street, which had the unsavoury reputation. But even the old Warrington Mercury office has benefitted from a residential makeover and fill rates are high.

The same sadly can’t be vouched for the former Co-op Bank or, for our vintage readers, the old Lennons building, which the council vacated some time ago.

  •  Every now and then it’s easy to forget those who carry on performing public duties, or lobbying, that goes above and beyond.

In this vein, there’s the promoters of Warrington’s Transgender Day of Remembrance at the Orford Jubilee Hub on November 18, from 7pm.

Or the organisers of the Hallowe’en Ball for Warrington Recovery Cafe, who will take over the same venue on Saturday, October 29, from 5.30pm.

If you’re over Latchford way, why not consider volunteering for the luncheon club at St Hilda’s Mission in Slater Street on Mondays?

  •  Part of Podium’s missionary work has taken your scribe to the wilds of North Wales, Llandudno in particular.

And it was interesting to note that the town celebrates its own Alice In Wonderland links, courtesy of the original Alice (Liddell) who often holidayed locally and conversed with author Lewis Caroll about her experiences.

Which is fine until you bump into possibly the world’s most sinister Mad Hatter statue on the promenade in the late evening (pictured here). Sweet dreams Pete...

  •  One of my newest fans, from the south of our great borough no less, has been castigating this column for pro-Labour leanings (Warrington Guardian, October 13).

Not sure what Momentum Warrington or WBC supremo Terry O’Neill would make of that in reality.

If anyone still wants to compare what the leafy southern Tory shires got in extra government aid, compared to the benighted socialist north last year, I’ll wait patiently for that apology.