I READ with great interest your article 'What future for the town Centre' (Malvern Gazette, October 18).

I will not pick up on every issue raised as I agree with most. To me there are three very important remedies to stop the demise of trade.

1. Yes the council must review the business rates as they are far too high. Its job is to encourage new traders and not to frighten them away.

2. Absent landlords. Is there anyway to stop them from increasing the rent for shops every year but doing nothing in between (e.g. repairs).

3. The most important thing to do is to train shoppers into seeing beyond the doors of supermarkets. Yes, I shop regularly at these shops but I also support as much as possible local retailers.

I see people in the supermarket who just pick up newspaper and magazines pay and go. Customers with lots of green grocery in their trolleys. Next they buy meat in plastic trays and covered with cling film.

A few yards away we have a very helpful and obliging newsagent working very hard to make a decent living.

Just up Church Street is an excellent greengrocers where goods are very often much cheaper and fresher.

A few yards further up we are privileged to have a high-class butcher. Perhaps you will pay a few pence more but try the meat once and you will find it well worth the walk.

I can hear the reply 'Church Street is too steep to climb'.

I have lived here for nearly 70 years and, yes, sometimes I feel that the gradient has risen. I can assure you that it is still the same it's just that my legs are getting older.

Shoppers in Malvern the future is in YOUR hands.

MRS PATRICIA MORRIS, Whitbourn Close, Malvern.