Letter to the Editor: what will become of the retail space at Wilko?

Dear Editor,

Many of us real Stroudies, who were actually born in Stroud have been dismayed by the demise of Wilko at the revamped Merrywalks Shopping Centre, now known as the Five Valleys Shop Centre.

The closure on Monday got the retail shopping week off to a sad start as the doors closed for the last time. My big question to centre owner Mark Dransfield and his team at Five Valleys is will this huge retail space now be taken up or will it just become another empty unit?

Wilko was a staple of the Stroud shopping scene – you could get pretty much anything you needed and at affordable prices. I feel this is a huge blow for the town.

Dave Wilkinson,

Stroud