I was pleased to see that Totnes’s independent shops are being given a high profile.

They offer a balance in a strongly community-minded town between the two human needs for individualism and also for belonging to a common group.

Most towns reverse these two needs, with people’s individualism very dominant and often leading to isolation, but with the chain stores so in common that their high streets are indistinguishable from each other.

Perhaps the problems now facing some major retail stores points to Totnes providing a better model in balancing these two needs.

But who can produce a better model for the traffic in Totnes High Street that reconciles the different needs of trade and personal security?

Sue Holmes

South Street, Totnes