SIR – I have to heartily agree with your correspondent last week, regarding the exterior colour scheme of the former O Neill s Bar. Why the borough s planning department gave permission for this monstrosity, is beyond belief, or did they? Not only does i

SIR - I have to heartily agree with your correspondent last week, regarding the exterior colour scheme of the former O'Neill's Bar.

Why the borough's planning department gave permission for this monstrosity, is beyond belief, or did they?

Not only does it look like an amusement arcade you would see on a sea front, it is totally out of keeping with the area.

With Pizza Hut's premises next door similarly out of keeping and Halfords' gaudy orange shop frontage, it is another great example of the way the town centre is slowly being turned into a corporate rainbow.

Perhaps if all the establishments, especially in the Howardsgate area, painted their premises in gaudy colours, we could have a giant sign board, possibly sited near the Coronation Fountain, indicating where the shops are, with large squares of the appropriate colour, for people who cannot read shop names!

Shop types must obviously be of a different hue. eg. The Garden Shop must be a grass green, City Sounds (my favourite shop) could be black and white stripes, as a keyboard, all estate agents should be yellow with roses around the doors, banks really should be transparent, Superdrug could be a clinical white, building societies in any colour of little or no interest, newsagents should be red, coffee shops in mocha brown, hairdressers should be highlighted and maybe the post office in a camouflaged finish, so that no one could find it, even if they wanted to.

The icing on the cake could be John Lewis, finished in the latest 2009's most subtle and pastel shade of boring magnolia, but with a hint of mint!

That should do the trick and completely ruin the whole ethos of this, carefully thought out, shopping area! Mind you it might work, Heaven help us!

Rik Bailey,

WGC.