At last, a clear, loud and influential voice speaking out to try to save our cities and towns (John Lewis boss calls for royal commission to save UK high streets, 11 September). Dame Sharon White rightly identifies the symptoms (boarded up, empty shops, dwindling services, shabby streets) evident before the lockdowns, but escalated since by online shopping and the need to limit car usage. A royal commission? Bring it on. But also let’s have citizens’ assemblies so that local voices can inform and advise our civic leaders and town planners about the redesign and rebuild of what were once the beating hearts of community life.
Bryan Merton
Leicester
• I think it’s a bit rich for the boss of John Lewis to call for a royal commission to save the high street, given the company’s history of relocating to out-of-town retail parks such as the Trafford Centre and Meadowhall. The company should lead by example and begin to relocate back to the high street and vacate such centres, which are equally responsible for the death of the high street as the internet has been.
Mark Glover
Wigan, Greater Manchester
• The boss of John Lewis calls for a royal commission to save UK high streets. This is after she singlehandedly tore the heart out of Sheffield city centre by closing its John Lewis store. Now that it’s gone, there is nowhere else that does what it did. The city centre is now a place of desolation.
Angela Bogle
Bakewell, Derbyshire
• High-street shops need to look to their own practices. Having got tired of being told by shop assistants, time after time, “We don’t have your size but you can order it online”, I don’t bother to go into town any more.
Susan Howes
Over, Cambridgeshire
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