Shops helping district decay

I agree with Cllr Eden-green [‘Garish shopfronts “leaving city resembling second-class Las Vegas”’, Gazette February 9]. The ugly, inappropriate shop signs add to the shabby, rundown appearance of Canterbury’s high street.

Equally disturbing are the plethora of signs surrounding the Westgate Towers, which degrade an imposing, historic monument and the total neglect of planting on roundabouts, all of which contribute to the decay and decline which pervades Canterbury.

However, the Gazette’s front page should have focused, in equally large capitals, on the government decision, endorsed by Kent MPS, to allow the discharge of sewage to continue [‘Sewage-dumping rules “not enough”’, Gazette February 9]. After another 15 years polluting the sea, destroying marine and river life, will it ever fully recover?

Already families are anxious about swimming around the local coast.

Can we look forward to another summer during which swimmers at Tankerton, like us last

summer, find themselves barred because there is raw sewage in the sea, even when there had been no storms to provide the standard excuse?

Despite this scandal, the Times reported earlier this month that according to Ipsos Mori’s research the environment only ranks fourth in the table of people’s concerns.

The Gazette reflects and reinforces this order of priority by consigning its report on the scandal of sewage in our sea and rivers to page 12.

Why does it not join with all those campaigning for an end now to the criminal practices of the water companies?

Penelope Reilly

Tyler Hill Cottage, Canterbury