It never ceases to amaze me how a minority of people can turn a factual observation - that successful retail centres cater for the majority of the public,who just happen to be car users - into some sort of advert for cars.

Ealing is faced with a hard fact: either it starts to positively cater for car users or it settles for being a retail backwater (which it has been for the last 40 years or so).

Being a backwater hasn't been so bad over the years. But it has shown that Ealing retailers are much at the mercy of neighbouring major retail developments.

This is just a fact of life.A fact all of Ealing has to face up to.

But the choice should be made by a majority consensus of the public.The decision should not be made by an outdated dictatorial idealistic dinosaur of minority opinion.

Sixty years ago West Ealing Broadway was the major shopping centre of Ealing while most of the high class shops resided in Ealing Broadway.

Over the years great emphasis has been placed on the centre of Ealing, while West Ealing has been ignored and neglected. Forgotten, overlooked is the great waste of space taken up by the railway to the north of West Ealing.If the railway was lowered into a cutting a vast new retail, housing and amusement development could be properly added.

Not the tiny shoehorning of tomorrow's slums into any tiny plot of land as happens now. The 'Manor Road' development would bring a safe,easy and quick access to West Ealing by those living north of Manor and Drayton Bridge roads.

Perhaps we already have the ideal situation?

No major retail development and a constant turnover of smaller retail outlets fighting for our

And for the greater choice offered by shopping malls Ealingites only have to travel short distances to neighbouring boroughs.

But whatever the public decides it will not be because of their endorsement of the car,no matter what minority opinions want you to believe to further their own political enterprise.

JOE PAGE

Ealing