My greatest longing, on returning home from five months in hospital, was to visit Kingston again.
But the joy of the reunion with my beloved townscape was spoiled by the desecration of the market place.
The new wooden stalls, hideous in their cheap uniformity, have reduced the heart of the ancient royal borough to a flimsy pop-up stage set.
With the banishment of all the-non food stalls and the gaily striped awnings, it has lost its integrity as an authentic, working market and has become an Ikea designer’s concept of an open-air mart.
Browsing the eclectic mix of produce and novelties used to be a cheering antidote to Kingston’s chain stores, but now the range of the stalls has been shrunk to make way for empty swathes of grey paving.
It is painful to see the historic market house disfigured by such crassness and even more painful to imagine the sums wasted on such a needless venture.
June Sampson
Kingston
- Send your letters to: letters@surreycomet.co.uk
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