Yvonne White of Bye Street, Ledbury, says our town needed new supermarket (From Hereford Times)

Yvonne White of Bye Street, Ledbury, says our town needed new supermarket

3:00pm Wednesday 9th May 2012 in Letters

A LADY with common sense – that is Sheila Taylor (Readers’ Times, April 19).

I was one of Sainsbury’s supporters. The majority of Ledbury locals wholeheartedly supported the application to build a new supermarket and petrol station on the Lower Road Trading Estate in Ledbury.

We sent in supporting letters and gathered thousands of names and addresses on a supporting petition, but as Sheila said, we were ignored to satisfy the wishes of a few newcomers and some shopkeepers.

I, along with dozens of other supporters, attended the planning meeting at the Shirehall.

I sat and listened as Roland Close used every reason that he could think of to stop the application being successful, even going to the extreme of citing slow worms being disturbed.

Funny that the factory already existing on the site didn’t seem to disturb them. Give me an hour and I will give you a bucket full of them – Ledbury is full of them. My neighbour’s cat plays with them on the front lawn daily.

I read in the Hereford Times that Hereford is to get a £90 million retail development and a new Hobbycraft. Jobs galore for Hereford along with eight large supermarkets and dozens of petrol stations.

All we want is one large supermarket and another petrol station to go with the one we already have. Are we asking too much? We don’t think we are and we will go on supporting any future retailer or manufacturer that wants to build in Ledbury so that we can have more choice and desperately needed jobs.

YVONNE WHITE, Bye Street, Ledbury.