Counters clutter

Who else is sick of all the items many shops pile high at their till points, rendering the concept of a counter worthless?

It is impossible to set a shopping bag, handbag or purse down on many counters nowadays, and as someone with poor feeling in my hands and spinal problems it is becoming a real issue to pay and pack away my purchased items without extreme difficulty.

Added to that, many of these stores are now instructing shop assistants to offer a succession of these random items to every customer – cookies, bars of chocolates, batteries, reduced items, seasonal goods... anything and everything. In my experience few purchase them, and the assistant’s efforts to push them merely adds to the wait time for the queue of customers.

Retailers, for your customers’ convenience and ease please revert back to clear spaces at counters to enable us to pay and pack our shopping without the stress and difficulty currently experienced.

JUDI MARTIN Maryculter, Aberdeenshire and perhaps might be construed as illegal. This tactic is because the government has told suppliers to try to install these meters in 50 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020 or face fines of up to £7 billion.

To date, only 11 million have been installed, which is why energy firms are resorting to methods such as this and stating that it is compulsory.

But it was the EU diktats which started all this, and since we are leaving the government can change this policy – especially now that Russia may launch cyber attacks and where better to start than our electricity network via smart meter technology.

CLARK CROSS Springfield Road, Linlithgow