How disappointing it was to read in last week’s Gazette & Herald that what Chippenham needs is “...more parking ... and this can be an opportunity for us to create an area with a multi-storey car park, smaller shops... possibly a cinema.”

This was Coun John Thomson talking about the Bridge Centre site – an area that is one of the main entrances to the town.

Coun Thomson goes on to suggest that the “problem” of the site being an island could be overcome by having a “walkway similar to the one in Cabot Circus, Bristol”.

This project, if it went ahead, has all the classic features of a Chippenham planning mistake – as for example seen in some of the buildings along the town riverside.

The Bridge Centre has given good value to the town over many years as an accessible multi-purpose building for many community activities.

It is an example, I believe, of a classic type of community architecture which I will be sorry to see go and which I am sure will in the future be featured as an example of what the town has lost.

To replace it with a multi-storey car park (which will no doubt sit adjacent to the Nestlé site, the Ivy and Foghamshire), more shops (to add to those already empty) and a cinema (do we need two cinemas?) will provide another example of how unimaginatively and unsympathetically a town can be developed.

Michael Connolly, Sheldon Road.