Evolving towns

Those taking part in the present stooshie about plans for the Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen (Morag Morrell, Letters, 24 August) should be taking a longer view of things.

Almost certainly large-scale town centre shops are going to disappear, and no amount of public money spent on face-lifts for those areas can save them.

For the vast majority of shoppers, the out-of-town retail parks have seen them off, just as internet shopping is already making serious inroads into the retail parks’ share of the market.

Most probably the next stage of evolution is that people are going to live, and work, and eat, and enjoy themselves in those former town-centre shopping areas.

The people of Aberdeen should be planning for that era, not for the one which is already little more than a memory.

Irvine Inglis

Reston

Berwickshire