However, he exposes the weakness of the Centros scheme when he suggests that more shops just like those in Preston and the Trafford Centre will draw people into our town.

Why should they? Preston and the Trafford Centre will always have more big shops than Lancaster, and on those terms our town will always be the baby brother, however many chain shops Centros can pack onto the new site – it's simply a matter of scale.

Furthermore, he appears to think that the Centros scheme is the only game in town.

If that is true, then we really are in trouble, because the Centros scheme – chain retailers with some cosmetic apartments and cultural projects – is anchored by a 150-year-old retailing model in the department store.

The first such store was built in Paris in the 1850s, and it is now a struggling model which has had its day; it certainly will not survive the advent of internet shopping and peak oil. What Centros are offering – and it shows either an astonishing lack of imagination or an insulting laziness on their part – is a 19th century notion, when Lancaster should be building for the 21st century.

This means more locally-based, small-scale retail, peculiar to Lancaster and reflecting the life of the town, mixed with improved cultural and tourist facilities, and bonded with a modern public transport system and pedestrian-friendly streets; these are the things which will attract people to Lancaster, not more car-attractive chain stores selling things we can already buy on the internet, in our town and in Preston.

Your correspondent is correct – the citizens of Lancaster are being offered an opportunity. But it is an opportunity to be imaginative, to be brave and to be different, to stand out from the crowd; camouflaging ourselves to look just like our neighbours will not help Lancaster.

Roger Moorhouse
Grasmere Rd
Lancaster