A RECENT cartoon showed a small boy asking ‘Mummy, what’s a shop?’ Now we hear that Amazon has paid less corporation tax than ever on their UK trade, even though their profits have increased by nearly three times.

High Street shops cannot do this, and so we see store chains closing and empty shops in our town centres in Cheshire.

Also we have more vans driving round creating pollution as they deliver packages.

I am a pensioner of the Cheshire Pension Fund which covers local government employees in Cheshire.

Their largest direct investment of nearly £70 million is in Amazon, with other large investments in Facebook and Google.

The ‘profitability’ of these online companies attracts investors, which look for quick returns, regardless of damage to our local shops.

We are told there is no ‘magic money tree’, but these taxes are lost to the country.

I cannot see how that makes sense, for the future of our communities, and also for my grandchildren.

We know that our services are at breaking point, with the NHS, care services, education and local government all struggling.

Councils rely on taxation, and work hard to support our communities.

But their own pension fund chases profits, and supports ever more tax avoidance.

Dave Plunkett Chester