Our campaign teams have been out and about in local centres and knocking on doors to find out residents' views on living in Havering. Views so far have been mainly positive and constructive. A recuring negative theme has, however, been the lack of variety in new shops in the out of Romford centres and a dislike of ever more food and charity outlets opening. We agree that this is an unfortunate development but such outlets are, in our view, preferable to having the units empty and the remaining shopkeepers benefit from the footfall they bring. The world is constantly changing and the exploding growth of on-line shopping means less people are shopping in conventional outlets. Even when the recession is well and truly behind us we are not likely to see a resurgence of demand for space in local shopping parades for the wide variety of shops we would all like to see because not enough of us are prepared to patronise them.