A John Lewis Store in Colchester

From my point of view I see Colchester's future as one based on tourism, culture, entertainment, food and drink - and quality shopping. I don't want any big stores inside the town and believe that the likes of John Lewis should all be out of town, on a site comparable (and competing) with Braintree's Freeport. We need to attract people of all sorts to Colchester, to our shopping parks at Tollgate, to our quality small shops in the town centre, to the Castle and our museums, to the VAF and other art based locations, to the zoo, our hotels and restaurants, to Leisure World, etc. We all know that Colchester cannot handle car traffic at all well. So the Tollgate style shopping area makes the shopping experience attractive to car driving shoppers, especially if there is a Park and Ride facility as well to compliment, rather than compete with, our shops. There is huge potential for all types of visitors to our town, yet we get this petty political squabbling over the scraps. Like the old bull and the young bull. Rather than rush in and have a few of the heifers, take your time, stroll in and have the lot!”