Published at 07:41, Wednesday, 13 February 2013

MY wife and I returned from our weekly Saturday shopping trip to Hexham feeling even more despondent as to the future of our once fine town.

As we walked from Argyle Terrace we passed the empty County Hotel. I note the first vandalised window has appeared and still no sign of any of the promised refurbishment.

Then on to Priestpopple, Robinson and Cowell stands empty and forlorn, the Royal Hotel with its boarded up windows resembles something from a deprived area on North Tyneside not an affluent area in the Tyne Valley.

Into Fore Street and along to St Mary’s Chare the sorry state carries on – empty shops and an atmosphere of decay and sadness.

How do we find ourselves in such a demise? Have we reached a state where we must accept that the centre of town will soon be extinct as a shopping area and rejoice in the large national companies that are on the fringe of town?

Perhaps our councillors, who profess to have the good of the town at heart, or indeed the recent in-comers to our area who shop online and travel to the Metro Centre, can come up with an answer.

My family has supported the shops in Hexham for nearly a century over four generations and the only thriving business we see is a bunch of over enthusiastic traffic wardens intent on finally chasing the last shopper out of town.

TOM SOUTHERN,

Great Whittington

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk