Most if not all history on this place has been written in bits and bats hope ive pulled all my stops out for this 1 !.
Back in the early 1960’s this venue opened as “Mecca Locarno” at a cost of £550,000 on the site of a former roller skating arena which was burned to the ground in 1955, later in its life it became known as “Dollar and Dimes” and then later known as “The Palace” before a Mr Majid bought the place back in 1990 later it changed name again to “Maestros” and eventually turned into “Penningtons” by a Bradford Businessman Mr John. Pennington a few years passed and Mr. J. Pennington sold it in 2003, this is when it became “The Towne & Country Club”.
In 2005 the club folded due to it’s so called “liabilities” (if you don’t know Bradford especially this part of Bradford then now know this ….Drug dealing and shootings close to this club played a part in the closure of this place not that anyone would let you believe this!, yes financial problems had its part too but it was by no means the only thing).
Due to the sudden closure of this venue it left many people angry including the Bingley organisers of a “Disco Dancing Competition” who was meant to have arranged and paid a deposit of £100 in April for a night in November so leaving the organiser Mr. Michelle Short and her group searching for a new venue for over 500 disco dancers.
The Towne & Country club had a state of the art sound system costing over £80.000, 2 expensive green Argon lasers and a full 3D multi-coloured water cooled laser system which more than likely costing a whopping amount of wonga !!!!!....(shame there all gone as I’ve looked every where but the only thing that is left is a whopping big hole in the roof where they once were suspended, this club also had the biggest and cleanest toilet facilities in the Rave scene.
Mr. Javed Majid (owner of Cleveland-based Maher Entertainments Ltd) who owned the club back when it was called “Maestros” is as far as I am aware the current owner wanted to re develop this site (by demolition and re build) but had been blocked several times by the Council (planning department) even though he has gone back time and time again with different ideas which would have created a multi-million pound investment. One of his ideas was a 9 million pound Asian Bazaar (he had been approached by a Middle Eastern company that wants to finance the building of a top-class Asian bazaar) this would have included specialist shops and restaurants spread over five floors also it would have included a central eating area with ten restaurants, furniture shops, clothing and jewellery.
An earlier idea was to build apartments on this site but due to section 106 never went ahead as to resolve this matter (section 106) it would have cost him at least a couple of million.
Mr John Eyles who was the manager of Bradford Council’s Major Development Team stated “This piece of land is within a community priority area in our Unitary Development Plan. This means it needs to serve the local community as a community facility, housing for local needs or something which generates employment”
So to date that's that as the saying goes!.........
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