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  I certainly don't want to point fingers, Roger, but I don't think the choice is between a healthy Town Centre or healthy out of town shopping. I think the High Street of old has had its day, almost every sizeable town has these retail parks where parking is free and easy and where leisure facilities are built alongside with cafes, restaurants and (often as not) cinemas all sharing the same facilities. You cannot compete with these, and if the Town is to prosper it has to build one too.
  
  Where the High Street can and will succeed is by developing more niche shops with quality goods that are attractive to look at and visit. There are some very good examples of this in Dover - Curiosity of Dover for instance - and these shops, that offer a different shopping experience, and with good pubs and cafes competing against the high-volume retail park shops must be the way for the High Street of old to evolve. At the risk of being blunt, who wants to pay to park to visit Peacocks and the indoor market when out of town retail parks offer free parking and a wider variety of quality shops?
  
  Evolve or die, I say - and I think Tom's original post on this thread is spot on. Can our planners please stop being so blinkered?

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