IT really does take the biscuit for our half-baked civic society, in the shape of Nigel Gilbert (Shuttle/Times & News Letters, March 20), to try to blame those of us who fought flat out to get a cinema for Kidderminster for failing, when it was they, themselves, who idiotically sabotaged the whole enterprise.

There was never any way to develop a cinema within the existing Piano Building. Of course that was the first thing we considered, but it simply cannot be done. It is not viable. It won't work.

That is precisely why we had to look at alternative projects - either Crossley Park, or demolishing the useless Piano Building - in the first place.

No, Mr Gilbert, when I was leader of the council we never had any opportunity to look at any other location within the Centros Miller town centre site as a previous administration on the council had already allowed a "phased" development so effectively letting that degree of control slip out of the council's grasp.

What a marvellous civic society we have.

First of all we are only just finding our way out of the protracted Horsefair fiasco after they "saved" three useless and hideous "cottages". Now they have deprived us of our best chance of getting a cinema.

Yes, of course we must preserve the best of the old, but we also need to build for the future.

By insisting on preserving the debris and rubbish of the past, the civic society denies us the opportunity of a better Kidderminster for the future.

In order to survive, a town has to change and grow to meet the needs of each new generation.

COUNCILLOR MIKE OBORSKI

Osborne Close

Kidderminster