I AM writing to express my anger at the article on the independent study for future shopping in Tavistock. 

What a joke — do these people actually shop every week in Tavistock? 

Over the years several estates have been built, with no additional supermarket being built.  I shop every week in Morrisons and if you go at 4 o'clock on a Thursday at times the shelves are empty, especially for eggs, bread and cereal. 

If Tavistock Chamber of Commerce suggests I get these items in the town, then think again — I am not going to pay more than I need to for these essential items.   

I get very frustrated that I cannot get my full week's shopping — I suggest the so-called independent consultants go to Morrisons on a Thursday afternoon and then say we don't need another supermarket. 

Many people in Tavistock shop on-line and shop outside Tavistock — you are driving local people away not keeping them.  

People who have businesses in the town do not want another supermarket of course not — but what about the people?  

Sandra Sherrell

via email

HOW could a retail study deduce that Tavistock is well catered for by supermarkets?  Am I the only one that has queued in Morrisons for half an hour?  Is it fictional that Tavistock residents are travelling to Roborough, Launceston or Okehampton to shop?

There must be a Tavistock in a parallel universe where everyone does their shopping in the town centre, where only the minority use such a lowly thing as a supermarket. Indeed, this mythical Tavistock is most uniquely blessed as it already has sufficient supermarkets to meet the demands of a growing town for the next 20 years.

How strange that the place where I live is desperately short of a good supermarket. Is it not a possibility that encouraging someone to compete with  Morrisons would be good for us all?  

As a local, I must confess that it is very tempting to start shopping out of Tavistock and if I did so, once there I would buy more to make the journey worthwhile. The net effect would be to reduce my shopping in the centre.

I refuse to accept that the study reflects the true needs of the Tavistock people.

Malcolm Bassett

Redmoor Close

Tavistock

ONCE again the studies on the requirement for an additional superstore have missed the point and have not tackled the main and most logical issue. The fact is that trade for shop owners and tenants, and I am one of them, does increase with the addition of a superstore ie, perhaps a Waitrose or a Sainsbury within the outskirts of Tavistock.

I would be confident that if a local resident vote was allowed then support for another superstore would prevail. At the same time such a new entry would then awaken the existing stores to provide better service and to offer perhaps cheaper goods. I remember the outcry of objections when Safeway/Morrisons was to be opened. I wonder how many residents would now wish to see them removed? However here we go again.    

The local and nearby residents of Tavistock would be happy to visit and enjoy a visit to Tavy shops and to perhaps stay for coffee and a meal, if they had a chance to attend a new superstore. At the moment their only alternative choice is to travel way outside of Tavistock and once this route occurs the shopkeepers of Tavistock have then lost a potential customer.

In other words, everyone loses by not having and welcoming a new superstore. Let the Tavistock and outlying village residents have their say please before a final decision is made.  

Frank Phillips

via email