I have just been reading the article on this site about a Travelodge coming to Wycombe. I have been reading the constant slurry of negativity, and the people trying to fight a rear-guard action to defend the town, trying to get people to slough off their negative views.

I think this article sums up very well the issue we have in Wycombe (well, one of). People are so eager to condemn the town, if it does nothing then people have a go at it for being behind the times. If it tries to improve itself then people criticise it for reaching too far, for trying to be too much like a city.

It isn’t a city. But it isn’t a small market town any more either. You won’t see people sauntering through the town centre early on a Saturday morning with a basket to buy their produce from a farmer’s market. Those days, for Wycombe at least, are gone.

I look at Wycombe, and I see a town with many faults. I see councillors who do not take the views and ideas of the public into account, and I see a few members of the public who let themselves down with their ‘yobbish’ behaviour. I see decisions being made by the great and the good that are not in the best interests of the town or the people.

But I also see a town that is trying. A town that, in many aspects, is making a real effort to improve itself. A town which people, both residents and those who live outside the town proper are all too eager to run down and belittle.

Wycombe is not perfect. I don’t think it claims to be. But I do think, even if it’s just once in a blue moon, those people who are so set on knocking every single little thing the town tries should perhaps just acknowledge that Wycombe, unlike many towns, is actually bothering to make some sort of effort.