IT was with a mixture of dismay and incredulity that I learned of the imminent threat to the future trading ability of Poyners Drapers, Broad Street, Ludlow. Situated as it is in the heart of the town and being one of only three remaining ‘all our yesteryear’ shops, it has become one of the most visited and photographed sites in town.
Shop closures in a highly popular tourist destination such as Ludlow can only be devastatingly detrimental to the whole town’s ability to trade itself out of recession when businesses are subject to such crippling rates as those confronting Poyners.
I have since learned that Poyners is faced with rate demands several thousands of pounds higher than vastly more substantial premises within metres of the shop. Having read the factors which are considered when setting rating levels, I can only describe them as archaic in the extreme. One factor is the width of premises frontages but surely, the person from the Valuation Office Agency was using a severely malfunctioning measuring stick! This is a crazy, cruel and unacceptable situation.
Having read some of the political responses to what’s happening I feel they are tending towards a muted and reluctant acceptance of the inevitable.
This approach must be rejected.
The problem is a political one, therefore the solution is political.
I trust that our local MP Philip Dunne and the local and county councils will be rigorously pursuing and applying that solution, urgently.
Poyners is the most quintessentially small market town shop that marks Ludlow out as different and better. Its future must be preserved.
PAUL TIGHE, Lower Galdeford, Ludlow
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