ANYONE laying the blame of Marks & Spencer’s decision to close its Darlington store on the Borough Council are missing the bigger picture.

M&S, like most chain stores, are systematically shutting town centre shops and shifting to retail parks. They are going where the customers are. The days of medium-sized market towns such as Darlington or Stockton being able to sustain decent-sized department stores is fast running out. Citing this as the end of the world is just more moaning from the useless, feckless moaners who probably do all of their shopping on the internet anyway.

Darlington is still a great town centre. It has it’s challenges but then again so does everywhere else. Lets stop moaning and make the most of what we’ve got.

Simon David, Darlington