Blame Amazon and online shoppers for decline of our high streets and town centres – Yorkshire Post Letters

JAYNE Dowle champions her shopkeeper friends (The Yorkshire Post, January 27) and rightly so, complaining like many others over PM Boris Johnson and his ‘cake’.

Barnsley’s view on ‘partygate’ and betrayal of shops – Jayne Dowle

She gives the impression that it is all the Government’s fault that shopkeepers aren’t making profit because of having to close during the pandemic, high rates etc.

Didn’t her ‘friends’, like workers, get government help? I would suggest her complaint has nothing whatsoever to do with the Government, but all to do with sit-at-home customers who would rather buy from being sat warm in their armchairs, being a click away looking for online bargains, rather than having to traipse around shopping.

Even if her friends in the retail trade paid zero rates, would they tempt people out of their cosiness to look for bargains when, in effect, these bargains are there for the taking without having to pay to go shopping in our towns and cities, paying for fuel, car parking, bus fares etc?

The real problem, as ever, is if people can buy the same slice of ‘cake’ cheaper, they certainly will.

It is not the Government that are betraying shopkeepers but every one of us when we buy online. Does Jayne never buy online?

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