11/5/2007
Your Letters
It's too late to rescue our rundown townI felt I had to write after reading Valerie Waldock’s letter about Aldershot, entitled ‘Who are they trying to fool now over Galleries fiasco?’ I regularly talk to other Aldershot residents about the state of the town, but we really need to start making our voices heard by the councillors.
I have lived in Aldershot all my life, as did my parents until they emigrated to Spain four years ago. They regularly visit me and, each time they do, they see how much worse the town has become. On their most recent visit, The Galleries had all shut down, the market had moved and almost disappeared and it seems the post office is to move into WH Smith. They believe the town is too run down to be rescued. As far as they are concerned, Aldershot has died.
I do not shop in Aldershot, and neither do my family and friends. We go to Farnham, Guildford or Portsmouth, where there are department stores and sports and clothes shops, as well as good quality places to eat and drink.
Aldershot has plenty of ‘cheap and cheerful’ shops. There are no clothes shops for my sons’ ages, no decent shoe shops, an M&S which has very limited choice and, of course, no department store. There is no balance. There are plenty of Aldershot people who don’t mind spending a little more money for quality goods, but there is nowhere in Aldershot to spend it. No wonder we all go elsewhere!
The youngsters are getting into trouble here for hanging round the parks and housing estates, but where can they go, and what are they supposed to do? There is no cinema. There is a small, run-down, dingy, outdated swimming pool. There is no ice skating rink. My children have to travel to Guildford or Bracknell to do the things the teenagers in most other towns have always had on their doorstep.
Why is Aldershot always at the bottom of the pile? Why do other towns submit plans for shopping centres etc and then, before you know it, work has started? Why is it all talk and no action in Aldershot?
I for one want a halt on building more houses and flats until the town has the facilities to match. How can we keep bringing more people to live here when we have nothing to offer?
My parents think it is too late to rescue Aldershot. Perhaps they are right.
Mrs K Pullen
Address supplied First printed in:
Aldershot News and Mail
| 
