IN YOUR report regarding the closing of one of the last second hand bookshops in Brighton you make no reference to the real cause of it and other similar shops’ demise.

It is the pernicious blight of charity shops.

Not only second hand bookshops but second hand clothes shops, second hand furniture shops and second hand bicycle shops are closing because of them.

It’s the poor of this town who are subsidising them and suffering because of them. Everything has now lost its resale value.

A poor person desperate for money can no longer sell an old suit, piece of furniture or a few books to tide them over when desperate.

They also take trade away from other high street shops such as bookshops.

Why pay £10 for a new book when you can buy it for a few pence in a charity shop?

The same applies to white goods, for example fridges, cookers, microwaves and all small electrical goods.

Now we have food banks doing the same thing to small corner shops in the poorer areas of the City.

Their customers in general are poor and likely to use food banks but it is they and the small shopkeepers who will suffer if they are forced to close.

Mr W Wilson
Old Salts Farm Road, Lancing