I WAS shocked to read your leader showing casual indifference to the latest threat to the daily lives of ordinary townsfolk. I refer to the proposed demolition of Tesco.

High Wycombe, like most small towns, used to abound in food shops of every description - grocers, greengrocers, bakers, fishmongers, butchers, dairies etc. Over the years, supermarkets have driven them out of business so that there is now only one general food shop left in the town centre - Tesco.

The proposal to destroy this last remaining essential shop is going to impose not just a minor inconvenience but real hardship on those least able to cope with it - pensioners, handicapped people to whom every few added yards to walk means greater difficulty and pain, which incidentally you don't seem to recognise.

The general public will also be adversely affected. People who now have easy access to their main shopping source either by bus or simply walking will be forced further afield thus using their cars if they have them or taking longer and more expensive bus journeys.

I urge you to visit Tesco's store especially on Fridays and Saturdays and you'll see it packed with customers - a quite large proportion of whom are older and/or handicapped people, mothers with pushchairs or toddlers. Where are all these hundreds-thousands to go?

The main concern in your leader seems to centre on what compensation Tesco will get. I should have thought it would be far more important to ask what compensation we, the public, will get.

People, especially poorer people and those left on their own need to be able to shop frequently for their daily essential needs; it is absurd to replace the only convenient store catering for them by providing a couple of department stores and a cinema plus yet another mall of unwanted retail outlets.

The town centre already has many boarded-up shop premises with more going the same way every month. I cannot think of any other town without sizeable food outlets in its centre.

Finally let's hope that the enormous bill to pay for this monstrous interference in our daily lives will deter those brilliant brains responsible for this disastrous scheme. Council taxpayers should be making their concern known before it's too late.

Ben Fox

London Road

High Wycombe