I have visited Dorchester several times over the last few weeks and on every occasion there have been lots of empty spaces in this car park.

Do the retailers not understand that there are plenty of spaces available, therefore there must be another reason that people are not going into their shops?

We are still in a recession and people are being more careful with their money or perhaps the Dorchester residents are fed up with all the negativity from activist John Grantham with his letters in the newspapers every week.

Here in Crewkerne we had huge disruption when the new Waitrose store was built on the Henhayes car park, but now we traders are seeing an increase in the number of shoppers throughout the town – bringing greater prosperity to us all.

The end result was well worth all the disruption.

Nick Sully East Street Crewkerne