Bit of a hiccup over micro pub

What can a chap say but ‘Oops’ followed by ‘Sorry’? Mind you, I think my crime was not one that should carry a death sentence – nor even a few days of Community Service.

As a consequence of a communication error, I wrote recently that the Barber’s Arms in Wye was a micro brewery. When I arrived there last Thursday, Graham, the landlord put me right. ‘This is a micro pub’ he said, ‘in which we sell the products of a number of micro breweries from all over the country’.

He also told me that he had plans to open another micro pub in the near future.

What a depressing sight that was on the front page of last week’s KE (Coming soon) regarding the expansion of the Ashford Designer Outlet. The juggernaut of the council’s idea of progress is, of course, unstoppable, though I have yet to find anyone who thinks the expansion of the outlet centre will not make the regeneration of our town centre just about impossible.

Every now and then we are told how well the town is doing, with more shops opening all the time. But as new shops open, others close. More shops, remember, does not necessarily mean better shopping opportunities. The standard and variety is steadily declining, though I must say we are getting a better class of charity shop lately.

One piece of good news we are told is that our M&S store in County Square is to remain open, despite the new Foodhall store which the company will be opening at Bybrook.

Call me a cynic if you will but the only thing that matters to the M&S accountants (and our council) is profitability and if in future their number crunchers decide that their profitability may be enhanced by the closure of the County Square store, that’s what they’ll do – and to heck with service to the community.

We saw it happen with Sainsbury’s in Park Mall despite their assurances that this was not the plan.