AT the Chamber of Trade, we receive lots of letters from towns asking us how we do it.

Do what you may ask?

Keep the town alive... but it isn’t us, it’s the small shop owners, the market stall holders, the restaurateurs and most of all you – the customers, the shoppers and the eaters frequenting our independents.

Ludlow is a rarity - a vibrant centre with few vacancies, allowing many local families to make a living. It is, though, vulnerable to some changes looming in 2017. With the resubmission of plans for an out-of-town supermarket on the Dun Cow site and the introduction of new super-hiked business rates, Ludlow may well look very different by the close of the year.

It does seem odd to me that an application our own planning committee decided they were ‘minded to refuse’ could possibly be resurrected with support from our own planning officers. The developer has made some minor changes and cynically resubmitted plans for a huge supermarket the size of our local Aldi and Budgens combined.

At the recent constructive public meeting, both possible supporters and objectors left less enthusiastic after they heard about issues concerning the site itself.

The numbers vary wildly in the developer’s submissions and, with no client, all their facts and figures about the impact on the town are mere guesswork - clearly Lidl or Waitrose wouldn’t have a similar effect.

While most of us wouldn’t be upset to see another petrol station or little convenience store, this town-killer is not the solution and access to cheap kids’ clothing is not guaranteed to be met by this proposal.

It’s clear that the developers don’t care about residents of Rocks Green or, indeed, Ludlow - they are responsible only to their investors. Please, please, please don’t let corporate greed override local democracy and our planning committee’s views, and just say ‘no’ to end this debacle.