Who will speak for commercial development?

More importantly, both managed to avoid the main issue.

Parking is a pain, but the answer to that is better parking arrangements, not a separate shopping centre.

Yes, another petrol station would be useful; I haven't heard many objections. No, another fast-food restaurant might not do any harm, but today I passed five fast-food restaurants (if I'm allowed to include takeaways) and there are others.

None of them is a national or international chain, and so much the better for that. A new one would add neither variety nor value.

What a lot of work it took to find arguments for a B&Q.

Mr Hull's choice of garden sheds was acute; the only thing I can't see on display in Ludlow and something I have had no cause to buy in my first 60 years on this earth.

Mr Williams's choice, wallpaper, is another puzzle; haven't we just lost a decorating supplies shop?

Could that mean there isn't enough demand to support one? If garden sheds and wallpaper are the only categories in the whole B&Q range that we can't get in Ludlow, perhaps we are OK.

Yes, Ludlow is in danger of being too twee to be true but what saves it is ordinary people doing their everyday shopping in the centre.

Take that away and you really will get the tourist town you fear.

And that is what it's really about. Not just a petrol station, a fast food store and a B&Q but a whole retail park. Where were the arguments for that?

Walking into town, I passed three empty shops and six charity shops. That isn't a picture of a town that needs a retail park. Building one just as they are going out of fashion is not 'moving on'.

But the jobs argument could move us on. Ludlow actually has lower unemployment than the national average, but too many of the jobs are poorly paid, in hotels, restaurants and retail. So it doesn't make much sense to offer more of the same. We need well-paid full-time employment. So who will speak up for commercial development?

Tony Blench

Wotton House,

Gravel Hill, Ludlow