Bad decisions have ruined town centres

I AGREE with everything said about the “Staffordshire” letter.

I am not a Tory toff. Born in London, I left school at 15 and lived in the Socialist Republic of Tottenham. In those days though they all worked and did not hack policeman to death on what was once an allotment patch.

I laughed with amusement at the picture of the lady who said shop local. Oh Yeah!

In Emley, where I have just moved from, I was at least five miles from any of the nearest towns and buses were only one an hour and only one route.

I worked out driving routes to retail supermarkets and shops I could park at and never touched a town centre unless I had to.

Which stupid planners’ idea was it to put the council homes office in the middle of a pedestrian precinct? Parking half a mile away, I cannot push my partner’s wheelchair that far, for the shops too.

Let me point out that after 9am Monday to Friday the only people on a bus are OAPs and students; they have bus passes. Ninety per cent are old ladies with one shopping bag or maybe two. They buy little as they cannot carry much. So who makes money in the town centre?

I have the post codes of the main shops that I use. Lidl, Aldi and Asda and sometimes Farm Foods and Iceland. They are easy to get to and park at. End of story. I use a farm butcher on the internet.

Dear parking, bad parking has undone all the local town centres.

As for Tesco, I have boycotted them for eight years due to their rotten aggressive policy of buying land to hold, effectively “bribing” councils into allowing them to build supermarkets where none are needed and putting small independents out of business if they can. And there small shops are just as dear as the independents who rely on local trade.

This council should be voted out for that alone. It is also a fact that this council bought a private car park meant for disabled, old and infirm people living in sheltered accommodation and threw it open to anyone.

Now at night you sometimes cannot park for at least two commercial vehicles, one a scrap vehicle and one a skip carrier and I have to get out, walk my wife to the door and then park round a corner.

This council should beware the wrinklies’ vote. I was on two over 50s council committees in Kirklees but am not ready for that here yet. When I find out who my local useless councillors are I will be asking if commercial contacts were more important then decency and integrity for the old.