I am in total agreement with your correspondent Alistair Graham on the Walmart (owners of Asda) debate.

It is easy to confirm his comments on Walmart practices. They have ravaged communities in the USA and Canada which have no independent shops left. We are no longer an isolated island and with the advent of the internet these facts can easily be confirmed.

I have found over the years that those who want any of the big supermarkets in the Forest care little about fair trade or good food. If they are prepared to feed their own loved ones dubious food, they will not care too much about the lives of anonymous farmers or growers.

It has been stated many times that the Co-operative pioneered fair trade. Some prices may be a little more than the giant supermarkets but it is for the ethos of traceable food, fair trade and a fairer world.

One prime example: Unlike Walmart who push down the price paid to growers, the Co-operative fair trade delivers a liveable fair wage to growers and will buy "virtual" products from growers who have experienced natural disasters which have decimated their crops to give them economic support until they recover. They act in the interest of fair living and life for all, not just for shareholders.

The pro-Walmart (Asda), Tesco etc lobby prattle on about "more choice". I don't get that. Over the years if I've wanted to buy flowers as a gift I go to Weston's where Claire or her staff will make me up the type of flowers I want, in whatever arrangement I want at whatever price I can afford. No supermarket will give that option.

Some years ago I attended a lecture on cooking oils and learnt that grapeseed oil was the most stable so I naturally wished to use it but I was unable to purchase it anywhere. I asked at Wyedean Wholefoods and they ordered some just for me. One cannot imagine a supermarket stocking an item just for one person.

So what exactly do these people mean by "more choice". They seem to view these advocates of concentrated power as benign uncles to the Forest folk. They live in cloud cuckoo land if they imagine that Asda, Tesco etc are going to take them by the hand skipping up the yellow brick road to Never Never Land to live happily ever after.

– Mrs J Price, Parkend.