I have refrained from commenting on the gyratory system and the new lifestyle centre until said improvements have had a little more visual impact on the town.

It is the easiest thing in the world to criticise a venture, and the hardest to decide what to put on a blank sheet of paper.

However, we do seem to have gone back to the 1960s in some respects, with featureless, cheap-looking architecture, for example, council offices, the police station, law courts etc.

We now have a characterless Bull Ring and a Lifestyle Centre which would not seem out of place on the Golden Mile at Blackpool with a “Fun House” placard across it.

Nevertheless, a small element of excitement has been introduced by the chicanery (I use the word loosely) type exit from the Bull Ring on Chesterway.

It would seem we are back to the “Ah well, it’s only Northwich anyway, not as if it were somewhere that mattered, like Chester”, style of thinking.

I wonder why it is that every time I look across from the Seafarer towards the Co-op I am reminded of John Wyndham’s apocalyptic novel Day of the Triffids?

Anthony Kitchen Northwich