Many years ago, when I worked at Manchester University, there was a concept that was known as ‘Arm-waving Schemes’.

Such schemes were very big, very new in outlook, very wide-ranging, and usually very impractical, and very expensive - usually conceived by high ranking academics!

It seems that Councillors Anstee and Reilly are producing an ‘Arm-waving Scheme’ for Altrincham - see my above definition.

On Wednesday, August 31, I walked from Rackhams to Oxford Road, down George Street, and along Stamford New Road.

I counted twenty empty businesses, plus one, Halo, that is closing down. I would ask, as do many of my friends, what businesses will come to Altrincham?

Two large supermarkets fulfil food requirements: there are two department stores.

There are two ‘pound’ shops and a couple of ‘low-price’ supermarkets, and a large bookstore.

In the concept of modern shopping, using the Internet, very little else is needed.

The most sensible thing that I have seen recently in the town is the conversion into residences of properties between Railway Street and Grafton Street.

Perhaps if more of these conversions were done on George Street it might solve the empty shop syndrome.

Flats and houses are always in demand, especially in south Manchester.

As another writer has suggested, it is time that Councillors got out into Altrincham and had a look around.

Potholes and cracks abound in the roads. It is useless paying large sums of money to consultants who do not live here. They will tell you what they think you want to hear. The answer is to get away from council meetings and talk to people.

Once elected, councillors seem to acquire delusions of grandeur and have no contact with those who put them there: they seem to speak ex cathedra as is shown in the letter from Messrs. Anstee and Reilly.

David Olliver
Altrincham