No sign of Santa

I am Letchworth born and bred and I can remember growing up was so much fun over Christmas there. I am only 44 so I am not looking back that many years. I am so disappointed about my home town, it has been going downhill over the last few years. I do not know who is in charge of it, but they just cannot be Letchworth born and bred or they would not have let it get to the poor state that it is in. I know that there are big plans for Letchworth, but I personally feel it could be too little too late.

I am the manager of Bell House Gallery and I have seen over the last five years how customer numbers have fallen because people do not want to shop in Letchworth.

Now it is Christmas and for a start we have no Christmas grotto, so families go out of town to see Santa, and therefore do their Christmas shopping elsewhere. On Sundays, the multi-storey car park is closed, other towns offer free parking, so again people go elsewhere to shop.

Come on, just what are the town managements doing, are they not bothering to come into the town to see its sorry self, are they just letting it go down and down? I do feel that whoever has the say in how this town should tick should feel quite disappointed with their achievements. There is just no life left in Letchworth. For goodness sake it is Christmas. Where is Santa? Where is the music? Where is the Christmas atmosphere? The answer to all of these is - there is none.

If I was not Letchworth born and bred I would not want to come here and I think it is such a shame that there are so many families out there who think just like that. Letchworth could be such an individual town, somewhere you will get special attention, you will get that extra special gift, let us have Letchworth the town it once was.

If Letchworth is looking for a town manager to bring life and sparkle back to this once lovely town, then take me on. I will make Letchworth come alive again as I remember it when I was growing up.

KAREN KIRK, Letchworth GC