CHANCE WORSE THAN CAT IN HELL

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Chance worse than cat in hell

Leicester bidding for City of Culture status? Now I've heard everything.

Unless we can see a wholesale clean-up of shop frontages along the main road arteries into the city, city centre areas such as Belgrave Gate cleaned up, the former Haymarket Theatre revived and reopened and an absence of for sale signs, the city hasn't a cat in hell's chance of success.

A business carrot would be to allow premises owners to set frontage makeover expenses against business rates.

But that would give Chancellor George Osborne a seizure.

John Burrows, Humberstone