Don’t trust planners to revive the high street

SIR – The Grimsey Review 2 into the high street (Business, July 4) will not command the attention its contents might deserve because the author (a former chief executive of Wickes and of Iceland) helped, by his own admission, to “successfully clone every town up and down the country and make them all look the same”.

An early, truly appalling, example of this trend was the replacement of Petty Cury in Cambridge by the utterly soulless Lion Yard.

Bill Grimsey puts his faith in strengthening local powers. This seems intuitively correct, but the actual record is abysmal. In Cambridge again, it was the city planning authorities who permitted the destruction of the unique, medieval Queens’ College Fellows’ Fruit Garden in the 1970s.

In short, we do not know what the solution is but it will probably emerge from some determined individual initiative, drawing inspiration neither from reviews of this kind nor from Westminster.

Hon Professor of Nanotechnology University of Buckingham

SIR – John Timpson, in one of his excellent columns, clearly identified why he was not expanding in high streets – the incessant drive by planners to make it as difficult as possible for motorists to get anywhere near town centres.

My home city is a prime example, with its relentless war on the motorist.

Norwich

SIR – Our branch of Marks & Spencer has ample seating (Letters, July 5), just inside the main entrance. It is usually occupied by ladies and gentlemen of a certain age waiting to be picked up by taxi. Staff call it “God’s waiting room”. C J Rawson

Burnley, Lancashire