Supermarket Support

In the B&R this week there are two letters in favour of having a supermarket in the middle of town. The arguments can roughly be paraphrased as: "it's all right for well-off people with cars, but poor people who rely on buses need cheap food locally."
Well, I'm not very highly paid, and I rely on buses, but I never go into Brecon or Hereford to shop for food. It is much more convenient to shop locally - especially since you're adding an hour's travel time each way to the shopping time. I once went to Lidl in Brecon and was bemused by the cheapness of the stuff in there, but very little of it was stuff I wanted to buy. I mostly cook from scratch now, and freeze portions for later, and my only real mass produced weakness is chocolate biscuits (and Dunkables from Spar are only £1.03). I don't want to lose the ability to shop at local greengrocers and butchers and the weekly market, and I've seen other towns where small shops have closed because of the arrival of a supermarket on the doorstep.
The issue is not just about whether a supermarket is desirable in Hay, though. It's also about local democracy and public accountability. We are told that there is no alternative to this scheme, which is being decided by people who do not live in Hay, without consultation with the people who live in Hay. There are always alternatives, and local people should always be consulted - and the results of those consultations should always be taken into account.
Hay is an expensive place to live, and we must all adapt to changing circumstances - but we should also have some say in how we choose to adapt, rather than having the changes forced upon us.