Regarding your article in last week’s edition headlined ‘Coffee shop may just prove to be the town’s cup of tea’.
Did I really read this?
My first reaction was to wonder if we really another coffee/tea shop and my second was to check the calendar to make sure that April 1 had not been moved into the middle of November.
Reading through the article, apparently coffee shops play a key role in maintaining and regenerating the vitality of the high street and boost the local economy by up to five per cent and boost the town centre footfall by 25 per cent.
I have nothing against coffee shops, however, when I sat down and counted the number of shops within the town centre, including the pubs that serve coffee, I came up with 13 premises.
Do we really need another to make it 14, just to increase the vitality and the footfall within the town centre?
What we really need is shops. We seem, as in other towns, to have been overwhelmed by charity shops, estate agents, banks/building societies, fast food outlets and now hot the heels we have coffee shops.
My worry is that if we are not careful the high street will not be there, to be regenerated by Costa or any other chain of coffee shops that descends upon March.
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