Clarendon Arcade will be embraced by many

Thousands of tourists visit Wadi Rum, Jordan, every year to marvel at the ever changing colours of the rock formations as the sun passes over. The problem with Livery Street, R. P. Taylor (Postbag last week), is the colourless people who decreed it should be sterile and neutral. In keeping with their vision and perception of what face Leamington should present to the world.

One can only wonder where these people were in the 1970s, when along the road from La Coppola, stood a shop, with the upper floor a empty shell with no frontage. A complete eye sore, it was like this for many years. At this time there were five department stores north of the river and a far more diverse range of shops, than are here today. Think, Casa Fina, now Cafe Rouge.

People love shopping malls, as do I, from visiting my first in America, 40 years ago, to the malls of Dubai, last year and Westfield, London at Christmas. Two factors have inhibited growth in Leamington. The decisions not to pedestrianise the Parade and not to dual carriageway, the road to Kenilworth.

The Clarendon Arcade, will be welcomed and embraced by the majority of the public. I suspect that they, like me, will have nothing in common with R.P. Taylor, the Leamington Society, Janet Alty and her Green Party and Cllr Copping and his Liberals. - Graham K. Beattie, via email.