Statement by the Deputy Leader of Hyndburn Borough Council regarding the incident at the Arndale Shopping Centre this morning

Councillors will no doubt have heard that earlier today a tragic incident occurred when a young woman died following a fall from the roof of the Arndale Centre. While the coroner will no doubt want to conduct proper enquiries into the circumstances of this particular tragedy, we know that over the past few years a number of incidents of suicide have taken place at this location.

The first thing to say about this is that every death, whatever its circumstances, is a tragedy and our hearts and thoughts go out to the family of this young woman and to anyone else who has been affected by this.

Naturally, in the hours following the incident there has been a lot of public concern expressed about this tragedy and calls have been made for the Council to either demolish the building or to install safety measure in the car park. These views have been widely made through the social media and it is clear that local people feel very strongly about what has happened.

Against this background, I want to make it clear that the Arndale Centre and its Car Parks are private property and that they are in no way owned or controlled by the Council. The Chief Executive has spoken this afternoon to Chief Inspector Platt at the Lancashire Constabulary, and we will be contacting the owners of the centre – a company called Jesta Finance – to again ask that they review the security of their building and take any steps necessary to try and prevent further occurrences of this kind.