AS a regular cinema-goer I would like to thank Nigel Gilbert and Kidderminster Civic Society for crushing local people's hopes of ever attaining a cinema - and for what? The Piano Building.

The romantic name suggests 17th century splendour, lavish archways and courtyards where ivy and clematis grow freely up its impeccable brickwork.

The reality, I am afraid, is a redundant factory shed with bricked out windows and half a gallon of white emulsion covering most of its south wall, now destined to sit in the middle of a modern shopping complex - for how long?

The Piano Building is just one of the ruins KCS (or Kidderminster's Crazy Schemers) have saved.

Who can forget the Weavers' Cottages next to Mario's empty fish and chip shop in the Horsefair?

They felt that these were worth preserving due to historical significance. These two ugly crumbling pebbledash monstrosities have also been listed, ruining Mario's retirement plans to sell the area to a credible developer and leaving the Horsefair itself without any hope of ever being taken seriously for a major redevelopment plan.

So what building, or buildings, set for the axe are next on their list?

Oh wait, don't tell me - Crown House in the Bull Ring. I can hear Mr Gilbert already: "This magnificent piece of architecture captures the spirit of its period with its beige bath-panel cladding and slimy green moss-effect, it is a living effigy of late 60s cuboid-renaissance". Give me strength.

Just one question, which I imagine I am not alone in wanting to ask: where were the civic society when the bulldozers removed Kidderminster's beautiful Victorian library and school of arts from the skyline? All we have now is a library which resembles the RAC headquarters and a college that looks like an aircraft hanger.

But what of the cinema? With all the procrastinating, red tape and intervention, it is a wonder B&Q and Centros Miller are not seen running from the town with the words "Gerroff my laaaand" ringing in their ears.

How can any town which desperately needs a cinema find itself in the advantageous scenario of one minute having two big-bucks developers falling over themselves to build a cinema, and the next minute lose them both? I will never know.

With B&Q's bid being delayed for 12 months or more due to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's intervention and Centros Miller left scratching their heads over what to do with a useless shell of a building, it makes one wonder if the people of this town and its surrounding neighbours will spend another 20 years travelling to Dudley, Rubery, Merry Hill or Worcester just to see the latest films, and, I may add, taking their spending money with them.

I am not opposed to the civic society at all, but they must learn that unless you speak for the people, you speak alone.

A lesson that must be learnt from this is that next time they want to preserve something, make sure everybody thinks that it is worth preserving.

P PARKER

Hurcott Road

Kidderminster