So Councillor Luke Clancy believes that a huge tower block in the centre of Croydon will revitalise it (Sky's the limit when it comes to building, Croydon Guardian, February 13).

Oh dear. What it is likely to do is pave the way for another round of unremarkable - possibly hideous - and no doubt even larger skyscraper developments, since a planning precedent has now been set for developers.

Croydon is a town that has suffered badly over the years from successive administrations, town planners and traffic engineers who believed, entirely wrongly, that concrete flyovers, monstrous sections of urban motorway, ugly office developments, one-way systems, numerous shopping malls, a huge arena and an alcohol- fuelled night-time economy were the way of the future.

Local people have been left with a windswept, unattractive and sometimes lawless town centre where things that provide real colour, culture, amenity and visual appeal like Turtle's, Beanos, Surrey Street market, the Warehouse Theatre, the almshouses, find themselves squeezed out by larger developments or struggling to find a niche in an environment that no longer respects the small, the medium-sized and the elderly.

While the council ponders the erection of further white elephants and shrines to corporate virility, perhaps it might like to think, for example, about how many years it took to find tenants for the tower at Canary Wharf, or why the Docklands Arena is now defunct?

Or why, despite the best efforts to promote more positive aspects of Croydon, the town remains a bad joke to most outsiders, featuring in amusing publications such as Crap Towns and Crap Towns 2?

And perhaps then we might get an approach to planning that more ably serves the people who live and work here.

K WILLIAMS, Devonshire Way, Croydon