I've been to Hay and Hay is just my kind of place. The only retailers allowed (or so it seems) are bookshops, antique emporiums, delis and butchers and greengrocers, bakeries that do cakes like your grandmother used to make, and cafes where the tea is well brewed and you can sit and enjoy the amazing array of 2nd hand books you have just filled up on.
That we did, so I am now well stocked with the rich seam of no-mental-agility-required writing that is PG Wodehouse. Plus some aged Penguin paperbacks that I should have already read but have been read many times before by someone else and therefore are all the better for it. And a Penguin guide to Devon that I wish was a Penguin guide to Yorkshire but they didn't have one.
I loved it in Hay. And everyone who lives in Hay loves it in Hay. And all the people who read quality newspapers and ponce about at the Hay Festival (I wish I could join their ranks) love it in Hay. The people who love Hay obviously want to keep it that way and understandably so, it's a special place. So you can see why they have set up this campaign to stop a new supermarket.
I was a bit cynical when I saw the signs on shop windows. I don't believe that the appearance of a supermarket in Hay would cause the local shops to close. The shops are flourishing because they are central to the atmosphere of Hay and the attraction of the place, and the thousands of visitors and the residents would never allow this to happen. However, just read a bit more on the campaign website. The big issue is perhaps not that the supermarket is planned, but that a new school and health centre goes hand in hand with the project should planning permission be granted. You let us build a supermarket, and we'll give you some basic facilities.
I don't like this, and I can understand why the people of Hay don't either. It is wrong that a community should have to say yes to something a lot of them do not want, in return for basic services that should be provided by the government. Mix together issues around food choices, localism, planning, politics and budget cuts and the plans in Hay are really worth watching. But don't worry about missing it just yet. The discussions are off just now until after the local elections of course.