SO Tesco's coming to Hadleigh then. Half the town will be rejoicing today, while the other half will be gnashing their teeth - while driving to Copdock to do their weekly shop there!Love them or loathe them, large supermarkets are a fact of life in 21st century Britain and much as people may campaign against them the fact is that they do give customers what they want!What Hadleigh should be grateful for is the fact that the supermarket is going to be right in the town centre.

SO Tesco's coming to Hadleigh then.

Half the town will be rejoicing today, while the other half will be gnashing their teeth - while driving to Copdock to do their weekly shop there!

Love them or loathe them, large supermarkets are a fact of life in 21st century Britain and much as people may campaign against them the fact is that they do give customers what they want!

What Hadleigh should be grateful for is the fact that the supermarket is going to be right in the town centre.

It's going to bring people into Hadleigh. People from Hintlesham, Bergholt, Capel, and Kersey who might otherwise have driven straight to the supermarkets at Ipswich or Colchester may now visit to their local market town.

And while they're getting their groceries at Tesco they might also take the opportunity to visit some of the specialist shops in the town.

Tesco could be the making of the place!

On the same subject, I'm not at all convinced that the inspector has got it right by ruling housing out of the redevelopment of the former sugar factory at Sproughton.

It sounds like a laudable object to try to turn the place into a business park, but I'm not convinced that there are businesses queuing up to move in there.

There are already business parks on the opposite side of the railway, at Boss Hall, and on the other side of Sproughton Road at Farthing Road.

Businesses that want to move to that area have already had ample opportunity to go there.

Ipswich council found that when they tried to promote the Eastway business park - which never really took off.

After the best part of a decade of under-development it was decided that homes could be built there and now Blakenham Park is rapidly taking shape.

I can't help fearing that the same thing could happen on the sugar factory site which would be a total disaster - can you imagine the decaying sugar silos remaining on site for another 10 years as a monument to a long-closed business?

Frankly Babergh council and the government inspector should have got real, accepted that this is a site that is ideal for new homes and allowed the Broadmeadow development to go ahead.

The whole area will pay for their lack of vision.

LIKE all right-thinking people I was appalled by the shooting of the Bradford police officer who was killed doing her duty on her daughter's fourth birthday.

But I am extremely relieved that the government and politicians generally are certain to reject the knee-jerk reaction of some ex-police chiefs and media commentators who have called for the re-introduction of the death penalty for police killers.

I make no apology for the fact that I am totally opposed to capital punishment. I always have been and I cannot imagine a circumstance in which it is justified. I know others disagree with that point of view and I respect their views - but that's my position.

What I cannot understand, however, is the logic that says police killers should be executed. The inference there is that is beyond the pale to kill a police officer, but not quite so bad to kill a shop assistant who refuses to hand over what the raiders want.

Or it is not quite so bad to kill a child - or a series of people.

What I think they're saying is that they want to see the police officer's killed executed but they're content to see Ian Huntley and Rose West languish in jail for the rest of their lives.

I find that very, very wrong. The grief of the family of the police officer is now clearly very raw and everyone's heart goes out to them.

But does her killer deserve any stronger punishment to that of the killer of the Nottingham jeweller?

When the killer is caught and convicted they deserve to be locked away for good - but the death penalty is not the answer.

I'D better look after my knees and hips if I stay living in east Suffolk! As the Primary Care Trust tries to restrict orthopedic surgery for us fatties, it does provide us with something of a wake-up call.

Occasionally I've felt twinges in one of my knees as I walk up stairs in cold wet weather - last weekend was particularly irritating.

But although I'm one of those who could be targetted by this new health edict, I can see the point of it. Why should I expect everyone else to fund my treatment if it's self-inflicted.

As a non-smoker I've always felt irritated that my taxes were helping to fund triple by-pass operations for those whose condition is brought on by themselves.

Of course they need the treatment, and they've contributed more to the exchequer by all the excise duty they've paid on tobacco - but I think there is an argument to be made about their treatment.

So it would be a bit rich of me now to complain about this form of sifting patients because of their weight. It might even give me the final prod I need to bring my weight down and get my BMI down.