There are suggestions that one Merseyside town is facing an "identity crisis".
Newton-le-Willows is a market town of over 20,000 people, sitting on the outskirts of Merseyside, however, some living on the more affluent eastern side of the town have been known to claim they are a "village". The ECHO recently reported on a mystery homemade sign put up on High Street.
The sign read: "Welcome to Newton-le-Willows. Please drive carefully through our village." While people were quick to point out the sign may have been a wind-up, some believe it reflects some attitudes in the town.
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One person said: "Newton-Le-Willows is not a village but the locals around the high street area refer to that area as the village and have done for decades if not centuries. This is clearly a wind up."
While another added: "We are a town not a village. People living in a village typically have to travel to get food. Colleges, high schools and primary schools can be found in towns. Typically villages won't have any or if they do its one of them covering multiple near by villages. Typically villages have populations under 5,000."
There does appear to be some kind of rift between the identities of the two sides of the town however, with the area around the High Street being viewed as more desirable than the Earlestown area.
Figures from the Office for National statistics show areas Earlestown are in the top 5% of most deprived areas in Europe. Meanwhile Newton-le-Willows has been named one of the hottest areas in the country to move by Rightmove.
Previously speaking to the ECHO, a shop owner in Earlestown town centre said: "There has never been a bigger gap between Earlestown and Newton. I've lived here all my life, I remember going into Sayers with my mum buying cakes as a kid. The town was booming, but it's just been left to rot.
"When you walk through Earlestown you can see the difference, all the buildings on Newton High Street have hanging baskets and are nicely decorated but up here it seems a bit like people don't care. We have another business that helps us keep going, we wouldn't be able to just depend on this one."
Debbie Makin opened her store Willow Womenswear & Home on Newton's High Street five years ago.
She told the ECHO : "We were one of the first shops like this to set up on this strip, and the shop does really well.
"Unfortunately I think a lot of the reason Earlestown struggles is because of the name that's been attached to it, there's obviously issues there but there is everywhere. But there is a bad name sort of attached to the area and it shouldn't be like that."
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