Don’t destroy what makes town special

You ask whether the revised plans for the Clarendon Arcade have changed our minds (Courier, last week). All we have to go on are some pretty mock-up pictures and some assurances. First we need to see the plans, as I suppose you have.
By The Newsroom
Published 11th Aug 2011, 10:17 BST

Otherwise how can you be so sure, as your Leader says, that we will be excited? Do we really have to ‘compete’ with Stratford and Solihull. We are all different. Let’s be sure we don’t destroy what makes Leamington so special in some silly kind of competition. We all fall for the ‘good fight’ language but actually the world is changing. We need to think where it is going, not run on the same old tracks down a siding.

You talk about Leamington in terms of social and cultural life, beautiful green spaces and the independents. That all sounds a far cry from the (as yet unknown) new ‘anchor’ and 30-40 more shops, when many are struggling already – not to mention stuffing South Leamington good and proper. Does this ‘genuinely meet the needs of the town’? - or just give a boring sameness and no better economic future anyway? What we really need is more imaginative up-to-date leadership focusing on what will make life not just tolerable but really worth living here in 20 and more years’ time. Me? – I’ll get more excited when I see the Wilson Bowden plan appear on the Obituaries page. - Chris Duke, St Marys Crescent, Leamington

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