Letter: How co-operative are these Co-op shops?

Letter: In Pant, near Oswestry, we are lucky, we have a busy rural village shop run by the Co-operative. They have just refurbished it and it now looks every inch the corporate retail outlet. They no doubt hope this will improve the shop's takings.

When they had finished they did not put back the noticeboard. You know the sort of thing, a hotch potch of postcards offering piano lessons, people asking for help with lost cats, local drama club productions etc. The sort of thing that holds a community together and makes the village shop the hub around which the village revolves.

The Co-op seems to be to taking over more and more convenience stores and turning them into the McDonald's of village shops.

Here are a few phrases taken from their corporate website (ethical operating plan, support for British farming, community hub, responsible retailing, bringing communities together, keeping communities thriving, making a difference in the local area, co-operative support ) Empty words, we used to have a village shop, now we only have a Co-op.

This letter is copied to most, if not all the parish councils in my part of Shropshire.

I hope the Co-op reads this and we get our noticeboard back.

It is up to the rest of you to try to keep yours, you don't value it until someone takes it away.

Roderick Melling

Member of Llanymynech and Pant Parish Council