SUPERMARKET giant Waitrose has given charities the chop after announcing they cannot collect outside the company's Marlow store.

Local charities have been shocked at the news that the most lucrative collection point in the town, in the alcove at the rear of the store, in West Street, is now out of bounds.

Waitrose claims it took the decision after customers at the up-market store complained that they felt they were being intimidated by the charity collectors.

A spokesman said: 'Both Marlow Waitrose and the company as a whole are very supportive of charities. We gave £1.4 million to charity last year.

'It got to the stage where the branch manager was receiving two requests a week from charities to collect outside the branch. Customers said they were beginning to feel intimidated by collectors as they entered the store.'

Jennifer Miles, secretary at the Leukaemia Research Fund in Marlow, said: 'It is with great regret that we learn from the manager of Waitrose that he has received complaints from a few people at the unceasing weekly presence of charity collectors, with some people saying they feel they are more or less having to pay to enter the shop.

'What strikes us as very sad about this situation is that the complaints seem to have the loudest voice.'

Mrs Miles insisted that their collectors did not employ threatening tactics and did not rattle their tins to encourage people to donate.

She added: 'We have always got on well with Waitrose and we don't want to fall out over this.'

She said that in the past staff in the store would sometimes bring out cups of tea to their collectors who on a good day could get up to a few hundred pounds at the rear of the store.

The Waitrose spokesman added: 'We can't get into a situation of how many people are for it and how many are against it. It is a problem that doesn't need to exist.

'Supporting charities is part of our companies ethos, but we don't like to think that our customers are feeling intimidated as they come to shop.'

Charities can still collect on the pavement at the front of the store and will be collecting up by the car park at the rear of the store.

See letters on page 8