NEW proposals being considered by the Office of Fair Trading will allow supermarkets to choose who supplies their periodicals and daily newspapers, letting them bypass those suppliers who are also committed to supply small newsagents and opt for cheaper ones who do not take part in this commitment.

This may look logical in a free-market sort of way, but it will result in intolerable commercial disadvantage to the smaller shops in favour of supermarkets who already enjoy many other unfair advantages because of their large buying and lobbying power.

In the USA similar changes have also resulted in the loss of several thousand small publications.

Smaller shops are part of our local infrastructure. Their contributions to the communities they serve do not always show up on a balance sheet.

For example they, unlike many supermarkets, can be reached without having to drive.

Without them our choice of where to shop and what to buy becomes poorer.

Candida Spillard,

Seymour Grove,

Heworth,

York.

Updated: 11:05 Friday, June 17, 2005