SIR,

Before leaving Monmouth I had known Phil Munday for 20+ years. 

His shop always epitomised 'proper' shopping as it had been for centuries - as he rightly said," shops were places of social interaction".

The bureaucrats who are imposing their pettifogging rules are the very sort who have caused the soulless, homogenised High Streets of Anytown across the world. Keep fighting 'em Phil.