IF you listen quietly you can hear the champagne corks popping in Co-op headquarters, whilst their top management celebrate getting away with the awful design of the entrance tower to their new superstore in Coleford.

Bonuses are being counted and the Co-op architects are busy booking holidays in exotic places.

Meanwhile, back in Coleford it's citizens who are suffering with the grotesque disfigurement they inflicted on the town.

All the entrance tower needs is a machine gun post and a searchlight to make it complete, so that it becomes a Second World War prison camp.

We all know that whoever is responsible for this dreadful design should be sent to Siberia.

Surely the Co-op can afford to make amends having recently taken over Tuffins.

As for the Forest of Dean planning officers' mistakes in allowing this to happen, my concern now is for the replacement building at Lawnstone House. I bet they select the worse design of the six concepts sent to them.

I reckon none of the planning officers live in Coleford or even in the Forest of Dean. Do they have any qualifications in aesthetic design?

I hope they don't get paid for the mess they have caused in Coleford.

– Roger Dingwall, Coleford.