I have lived in Chippenham for 60years and used to describe the place as being a lovely country town with plenty of choice when it came to shopping and walking around the area.

We are close to becoming the worst town in the whole of north wilts and a place that people are staying away from as the general opinion seems to be that its a waste of time going into town as its only fit for telephone shops and coffee bars. I have not been to Devizes for a number of years, but what a surprise my wife and I had when we arrived on Market Day, the town was full of people and it was easy to park the car.

My wife was amazed to find such a huge variety of shops there and they all seemed to be busy, I did not see a single phone shop, and the coffee houses were well spaced out and good value for money especially wetherspoons.

There are no big chain shops, but even the old Woolworth is being used again by Iceland and I only saw one empty shop.

I hope that Chippenham councillors wake up to the fact that if a small town like Devizes can do it why not Chippenham are they that short sighted to believe we are a special town and that retailers are going to beg them to be allowed to trade in the town.

Please stop messing about with our town and remember that we the townspeople elected you to make things good in the town, not to destroy it.

Why are we not allowing Asda to come and create jobs which are desperately needed for the unemployed? It is rubbish to say they will take trade from the High Street as we are losing ours anyway.

John Snell, Farleigh Close, Chippenham.

For the sake of fairness, there are at least two phone shops in the town centre. Another may even have sneaked in when I wasn’t looking. Gary Lawrence, editor.