I note that former councillor Usha Chopra thinks that having a sex shop is not a healthy thing.

I wish to disagree.

The shop does not allow anybody under the age of 18 inside and the shop front is discreetly screened. Yes, children do walk past it, as indeed my three children do, but what harm can this do? The same logic would infer that vegetarians should not walk past butchers' shops.

Ms Chopra may think that everyone is worried about it but I, for one, am not. The very reason that the Ann Summers shops and party plan schemes are a multi-million pound success is that people are beginning to be allowed to feel comfortable about their sex lives instead of being made to feel awkward, and embarrassed.

Surely, in a location such as this, if there is not enough business from local customers to keep the shop going, then it will close of its own volition rather than due to pressure from Disgusted of Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Jane Martin

Barr Road, Potters Bar

April 7, 2003 16:30