REGARDING Mrs Knight s letter in the POST bag , dated 29th July 2009. I am in full support of what she says in her letter. I moved into Barking in the late 1950 s as a young child, and grew up there in the 1960 s and 1970 s. The town was never a fantasti

REGARDING Mrs Knight's letter in the 'POST bag', dated 29th July 2009.

I am in full support of what she says in her letter. I moved into Barking in the late 1950's as a young child, and grew up there in the 1960's and 1970's. The town was never a fantastic compared to Romford or Ilford, but was a hundred times better than what we see today.

We had a myriad of useful shops, like: Stewarts', Sainsburys, Marks & Spencers. There were long established businesses like: Winch's furniture, Rodneys Books, Fletchers the butchers, Grays the chemist; and Dowling's curtains which it seems has closed down quite recently.

Today these shops are replaced by fast food outlets, mobile phone stores, pound shops and charity stores.

A town centre should be a town centre, with shops and businesses. It should not be one with hundreds of people all crammed into large blocks of flats. They have no real amenities here, which they can utilise, except when ELT is completed, whereby they can bus themselves to Ilford! It is totally ludicrous making the town into some sort of place, with mass population, which reminds me of something you would find in a holiday destination abroad.

As regards to the new flats, only recently it was announced that with regards to 'Bath House, that many of the purchasers had failed to complete, and they were being sold off in a liquidation auction. So it appears that this and perhaps the 'Lemonade Building' have already run out of fizz. The buildings in 10 years time will look awful and already look dated. You only have to look around a town like Romford in the market place, to see how to do things tastefully, but then their authority obviously cares about what is being built, and not just making money.

The town has gone rapidly down hill. As Mrs Knight points out these new buildings are 'garish and a mishmash' of different sizes, shapes and indeed colours. We will probably see another tower block replace the old Lintons too. What happened to the council's policy of a few years back whereby the tower blocks would be removed? I think it is just a question of raising as much revenue as they can from Council Tax, and they have sold out! To allow these buildings to be constructed here is wrong, and lets hope the voters have their say in the ballot box next year!

Ian Vickers

Waterside Close - Barking