City centre must be a key issue

While I agree with your editorial highlighting the future of the Embankment as a key

political issue, I can’t help thinking that it is the future of Peterborough’s city centre that should be at the forefront of voters’ minds (“Key election issues”, April 15). Walking around the city centre last Saturday morning, just a few days after shoppers had flocked back to the centre’s retailers, I was struck by how empty and forlorn it was. Furthermore, I couldn’t help thinking that it is neither par- ticularly appealing and certainly not sustainable in its current form.

Apart from a scattering of independent businesses, the centre of Peterborough is dominated by an identikit range of retailers which replicate the offer of many other cities and which have no local roots. This situation both creates a lack of distinctive variety and leaves the centre at the mercy of remote boards of directors, as the sudden departure of John Lewis and Next from the Queensgate Centre has demonstrated. These days, if I wish to have a retail experience that offers variety and distinctiveness as well as enjoyment, I find myself driving out to near

by towns such as Stamford, where parking is cheap, Oakham, or Market Deeping. Even a village like Deeping St James has retailers that tempt me out of Peterborough, in this case in the form of a proper traditional baker and an excellent picture framing shop. True, I also find myself shopping at the Maskew and Brotherhood retail parks, but these combine identikit functionality with a good range of essential shops and free parking. Having said this, I find the Maskew retail park soulless without somewhere to have a coffee in comfort. It just seems to want to take my money without adding anything distinctively pleasurable to the shopping experience.

It has been the policy of Peterborough City Council to persuade more people to live in or very close to the city centre, for instance in the large development at Fletton Quays. However, as the inner city population grows, the attractions of city centre life, with the welcome exception of the return of Beales department store and the imminent arrival of a multiplex cinema, are diminishing or are sim

ply growing stale. Even some of the independent retailers are not nearly as imaginative as they could be in their offer and style.

The upcoming local elections are an ideal opportunity for Peterborough’s politicians to put forward ideas for making the city centre experience more interesting, distinctive and enjoyable – and generally more appealing. But I’m not hearing anything from them on this important issue. David Head

West Town Peterborough