"This isn't free, whatever some people think. We taxpayers have paid for it all – and it's up to the shopkeepers now to do their bit. It is nicer now, keep it that way."
Which raises a number of questions including - as always - who benefits? (Cui bono). Comments under the Mail article include readers asking whether public money should have been spent on "regenerating" the premises of a fast food chain and a pawnbroker. Another comment challenged the landlords who, they said, were a "greedy shower" who "just take, take, take". There was also someone with what I see as a common fantasy about bringing everything back the way it used to be, with : "... all the old shops, ironmongers, butchers, bakers, haberdasheries. Life was so much better with the smaller businesses".
