I HAD a conversation with a friend the other day which summed up the challenge facing town centres.

She happily told me how she'd gone into a bathroom shop in Darlington and had some computerised designs produced for a new shower room. She'd then taken the designs away and used them to buy what she wanted much cheaper on the internet.

And that's what town centre shops are becoming - showrooms for internet shopping. I heard a similar story from a Darlington town centre jeweller. He'd discovered how a customer had come in to his shop to try on a Rolex - and then bought it on-line.

The internet is having an impact on every business - newspapers included, of course - and traditional town centres will die unless local people support them and the authorities make it easier and more atrtractive to shop.

I was sad last week to see that the long-established local florists Nattrass had decided to close its shop which fronts Darlington's indoor market. The company is seeing its business moving to the internet and is managing that transition very successfully.

But Katie Bennett, who gave up ambitions to be a journalist to become the third generation of her family to join the florists business, also blamed the "nightmare" of town centre parking and over-enthusiastic wardens for putting off shoppers.

Having caught town hall staff actually doctoring photographic evidence a couple of years ago to justify a parking fine wrongly imposed on me, I know where they are coming from.