Seventy years after its doors opened St. Margaret's Church, Abel Street, is to be closed. Final services will be held in the church a week on Sunday. The threat of closure has been hanging over the church for a long time, as a result of dwindling congregations and lack of money, but the agony of indecision was finally ended recently after an inspection revealed that the church had become a dangerous structure.
The Rev. Peter Garnett, priest-in-charge, told a Burnley Express reporter: "We are closing on Sunday week. For the following two Sundays we shall hold services in an ancillary building (a hut), and after this members of the congregation must distribute themselves among other local congregations, if they wish, in the parish. After the law has taken its course, St. Margaret's will eventually be amalgamated with the parish of St. Andrew's. I shall remain until another post is found for me."