Thanks for that information, which covers a period almost 40 years after my visit. At the time of the Vietnam war, they were weaving heavy duty parachute cloth for GQ Parachute (who I think they were Woking based) and they wove A, B, C and D specification cloths for the M o D. I think the Higham family once had an interest in this business but they were then part of a grouping of companies.
They did have, at that time of my visit to Padiham, a Manchester sales office on Aytoun Street, opposite to what was then the Grand Hotel, but the site is now naught but a surface car park.
Perserverance Mills survived until 2005 by producing
Pertex - a lightweight windproof fabric much used in outdoors clothing - on modern, hi-tech looms in Padiham. While this was profitable, the company diversified into other areas (packaging IIRC) which were not a success and it went into receivership. The looms were sold to Japan and all production moved there. Pertex still has its design centre in Bolton, but now employs smaller numbers of engineers/marketing & sales people in the UK, rather than large numbers of mill workers.
A typical tale of why regeneration of the area is required.
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Burnley is not full of well qualified people sitting around on the off chance that the Todmorden Curve might reopen within their lifetimes. Qualifications are generally poor(look at local GCSE pass rates) and those who go to university often don't return. Few people in Burnley will be able to get a well paid job in Manchester, and low pay close to home is surely less bad than low pay minus travel costs.
As for the rail link attracting new people to Burnley, over an hour's commute is unattractively long, especially without a nice place to live at the end of it. There are dozens of more desirable places(ie anywhere) to live closer to Manchester which aren't prohibitively expensive.
Burnley wants to attract both businesses and better paid professionals by the regeneration of the Weaver's Triangle adjacent to Manchester Rd station. The slow progress on this regeneration (see
wiki) makes Network Rail look positively speedy in constructing the Todmorden Curve - regeneration attempts have been going on for 25years now. But Burnley council are not giving up - their latest plan is for a £100m "On The Banks" development, although this is presumably less ambitious than the £260m 2006 plan, which didn't get off the ground.
Also Burnley Council have always campaigned for/expected a faster service to Manchester, even publicizing a 35 min journey time (presumably non stop) which was totally at odds with Northern Hub requirements for speeding up Bradford to Manchester services, supported by other local councils, DfT and the rail industry.
You may note a touch of cynicism here, my previous post only reported the official aims of the project, not my view of them.