Empty, gull-infested city moves closer

So there we have it, B&NES ‘paralysis of fear’ has finally hit the national headlines, and it is reported that there are now 42 vacant lots in the city centre alone. In my opinion, our non-elected officers have no idea what makes Bath unique, and that together with all the Colonel Blimps in Residents’ Associations and Eco-warriors, they will surely ‘do’ for us! My oft-expressed foreboding that we shall end up with a traffic-free, pollution-free, people-empty gullreserve of a city centre moves ever closer. The ‘policy-makers’ in B&NES just cannot see that large numbers of students (much as I value them), and the impending increase in office workers does nothing to grow our local independent economy. The students mostly use bars, fast-food outlets and charity shops, and the office workers mostly bring their own lunches, and then ‘hightail it’ out of Bath after work to surrounding locations where the housing is cheaper. ‘Wera’ bit fed-up with Bath MPS who constantly miss the priorities, and back only the headline-grabbing issues. Having read an interview with Mrs Hobhouse in a local magazine, I have little confidence that she will be any different from her ‘wishywashy’ predecessors, and be able to support ‘the capitalist nature’ of Independent Traders. Instead of just reportedly claiming that shop closures are ‘concerns we are addressing’, Paul Myers (B&NES cabinet member for economic and community regeneration), needs to set-up an action group made up of the Bath Chamber of Commerce, people like Luke John Emmett (who counted the empty shops), Tim Newark (of Bath Independent Traders), and some other Inde- pendent Traders and restaurateurs to get to grips with this crisis. Though I understand councils do not set the business rates, they are able to offer some help to shops. Rather than running up to London to support demos about Brexit, Wera Hobhouse should busy herself in lobbying Parliament to cut business rates and ‘rein-in’ on-line rivals who make massive profits without paying adequate taxes. Paul Bowden ‘Bramleys’ Bath