WELL, you have to chuckle. I am sure the council’s ‘industry partnership manager’ Roger Parker (Echo, October 4) does a marvellous job, but I feel he has been a little late in waking up to the fact that Bournemouth town centre is not the retail force it once was.

It seems he is not alone in his conclusions having included the participation of the ‘council’s economy and tourism overview and scrutiny panel’ in his valuable findings.

I do hope they worked this out in their spare time as it would have been an incredible waste of council’s sparse resources to spend taxpayers’ money on a report that states what everyone else in the town has known for years.

Hopefully I can help, no charge Mr Parker, as I am a ‘grey’, though hardly affluent.

Firstly and most importantly is the cost of parking. Castlepoint is free.

Then there is the walk from the car parks to the town centre, a no-no for greys, most of whom are elderly, (the clue is the colour of their hair).

Then there is the risk to life and limb crossing what used to be the Square and is now a games area for cyclists and skateboarders. Then winos now inhabiting most of the (dirty) benches.

Add to this that the town centre is now a sprawling building site, with I understand more to come, and you might start to get an inkling of why we don’t come to the town centre any more.

Planning legislation must be changed to prevent the demolition of buildings without an immediate rebuild date as a condition of consent.

There must also be local control over the types of business and the licences granted. We have to remove the tat such as that shabby, expensive ‘Christmas Fair’. We must enforce begging and vagrancy laws and take control over the mushrooming, pointless number of Big Issue sellers, no longer a worthwhile project and fast becoming a nuisance.

Successive administrations misdirecting funds and ambitions have brought this about. It can be fixed.

GEOFF COOPER, Methuen Road, Bournemouth