I WONDER if councillors Colomb and Fulford really know their classical mythology. I think that is unlikely.

Phoenix, the mythical bird, burns itself to ashes after singing a death song.

That is not the kind of imagery I would want to associate with reviving High Wycombe's town centre!

As Cllr Colomb recognises in his letter to the Free Press last week, High Wycombe is losing almost 50 per cent of its potential retail spend because there is not enough in the town centre to attract shoppers.

Unlike LxB's proposals, Stannifer's scheme goes nowhere near satisfying the demand giving High Wycombe the shopping and leisure facilities it needs to stem the "haemorrhaging" Cllr Fulford complains about to other, more attractive shopping towns such as Reading, Oxford and Watford.

Sadly, Cllr Colomb is trying to make a virtue out of the unsatisfactory compromise which was forced upon Stannifer by the council's lack of vision and ambition for the Western Sector.

He is also trying to close his ears to the chorus of criticism at Stannifer's presentation to The Wycombe Society last month.

If Cllr Colomb had only listened to us for a bit longer when we met on December 11, he would have learned that LxB's proposals are prepared by professionals, including my practice, with extensive experience in town centre developments all over the country.

There are many question marks about whether Stannifer's scheme is deliverable, but LxB's most certainly is, and at the least cost to the taxpayer.

Instead of casting unfounded aspersions about the cost to the taxpayer of LxB's or Tesco's proposals, Cllr Colomb should come totally clean, before the elections on May 1, with the actual subsidy which his council intends to give to the Stannifer scheme.

And so I ask Cllr Colomb are taxpayers being expected to pay £10 million, even £20 million?

He should also come clean on the actual results from the public consultation.

A strange silence seems to have descended in this area.

As Mr Loxley said in his letter a few weeks ago: "The voters need to carefully study these (Stannifer's) plans and remember the dismissive comments made by councillors (about Tesco's and indeed LxB's proposals) in May at the ballot box."

Many people may be thinking the same way.

P Hunter

Moore Hunter and

Partners

(Property advisers

to LxB Properties Ltd)

Draymans Lane

Marlow