I HAVE just received the Huntingdonshire District Wide magazine for summer 2008. The first page is a feature about the town of Ramsey and includes an article on the Gateway project. I have always thought that Ramsey is a charming town, but agree that some

I HAVE just received the Huntingdonshire District Wide magazine for summer 2008.

The first page is a feature about the town of Ramsey and includes an article on the Gateway project. I have always thought that Ramsey is a charming town, but agree that some regeneration is necessary, as I have been dismayed by the decline in recent years of businesses in The Great Whyte.

Doubtless there have been various contributory factors, but surely one of them has been the building of the Rainbow supermarket, which has sucked away trade from the centre.

Therefore I could not believe my eyes when I read that central to the Gateway plan is a Tesco store. Do the local councillors never travel outside of Ramsey? Have they not seen the damage that these supermarket giants have done throughout the country?

Do they not know that Tesco is the main culprit? For example, their edge-of-town stores have already damaged Wisbech, Royston, Huntingdon, St Ives and St Neots by taking trade away both from independent businesses in the centre of those towns and from the surrounding villages.

Doubtless the existing stores have to some extent also blighted Ramsey.

Those people who are disabled, without transport or without access to the internet are becoming increasingly isolated because of the loss of small businesses. The majority of us are rapidly finding our options for where to shop restricted to a small group of national firms.

Whatever the attractions of the Gateway project, I feel that proper consideration cannot have been given to the serious disadvantages of allowing a superstore to be included.

M KING

Ansley Way

St Ives