HEAR'SAY

Welcome to Vic's centenary edition, and yes, before you send in letters, I know I haven't written in every one of them I just felt it somewhat fitting to illiterate the fact of exactly how long this editorial delight has been going on for. I am pleased, therefore that the number amounts to editions rather than years, though sadly it, for me, sometimes feels that way. Well spring has most definitely sprung upon us in all it's glory. The weather, for all its faults has given us a few days of sunshine when it finally came out from the sea fret. But lo! Wait I hear you cry what else has been sprung on us this springtime?.......Phew sounds like some script from the magic round-a-bout....Well you might ask "me Booties" as lo and behold yet another bod has mused his idea into the Sheringham public eye and come up with a plan to create a green Tesco "2" under a different name that is, and selling, according to the creators, "local produced and sourced where possible, products" ripe for the pickings of the Sheringham minions. And... Wait for it, the goods are going to brought to your door on the back of an electric golf buggy! Or something of that ilk. Their new glazed store will be equipped with solar panels, a small wind farm and who knows what else from the Eco friendly bunch of the planets do-gooders. And now how is this extravaganza going to happen?  Well it seems that the councils will be bribed with the gift of "swapped land" (and some). Both for and adding to the community's vault of available burial and allotment land. Huh! Never mind the poor beggars who have for years nurtured the already existing allotment sites. Spent blood sweat and tears tendering to the soil only possibly now, seeing all that T L C being given carte blanch to a millionaire land owning crone who just happens to have a whim about keeping Tesco out of town. Or am I barking? Oh well, of course, there are others with interest in selling food and the like in town. Rumour has it that stores such as Roys and Sainsburys might have interest in the old Woolworth's site. Tesco have relaunched their new plans for a new designed store and of course there has always been the threat, God forbid, of a Budgens on the main Station Road car park.

All this begs the question, wouldn't it be good if the great powers in the towers granted the go-ahead to the lot of them? Perhaps someone might come up with the idea that Station Road could be demolished to make way for an in - town - out of town shopping retail park once and for all. Gone would be the mini veg and butchers, in would come Argos, Next, Primark and spices -r - us. Followed by BHS, QD and Nandos Spicy chicken and wait for it the long overdue Macdonald's!  Hoorah! At last now I have everything in town I travel to Norwich for! And what's it matter if we have five food stores The town would be so full of visitors working up an appetite we would need every one of them and more. So I say bring it on if you dare. But you know and I know that ain't never going to happen. Maybe in another 100 years time when most of the town is knee deep in seawater and dog faeces washed up from the shoreline as is the case now! Oh well some things never change. Or ever has done in this town.

As long as there is the fear of change by a group of folks so set in their ways and so focused on the past that the future will never be able to shoot new healthy growth and new life this town so desperately needs right now.  Hope you all had a great Easter and keep your chins up. Take care now Vic.