AN AQUAINTANCE told me that Leighton Buzzard was a nice town, so while over that way last week I popped in. They lied. It’s a horrible little dump.

The High Street is full of charity shops, pound stores and a pawn broker and the shopping mall – where the ceiling is so low you feel like ducking all the time – has a Job Centre slap bang in the middle of it.

I mention this because once again the High Wycombe Doomsayers are out. A report published last week revealed that there was more empty shopping space in the Eden centre than the high street and so the critics came crawling back out of the woodwork with their ‘told you so’ comments.

These are obviously the people who were happy when Wycombe was some backwater market town that looked unattractive and failed to bring in any business.

If that’s what the Eden critics want then I have a suggestion. Move to Leighton Buzzard.