Keef - re: your comment "the fact is, there are a load of empty shops on LL that no local person has bothered to take on and open anything good in. So, if a big chain wants to take it, and people like to go to it, why does it bother people so much?!?!?" makes no mention of the fact that the empty shops are empty not because local people don't want to take them on but the landlords involved are deliberately refusing them to any indie business in the hope of getting a big chain in. Hardly seems fair. One recently expanded drinking establishment had to crawls across nails to get the empty shop next door because the landlord wanted FarawaysunDollars Coffee Inc instead. Now had that happened we would probably have lost the local (and very popular) drinking establishment and gained a Coffee Chain. That is why it bothers me so much anyway...