City centre choices are puzzling

Earlier this year my mother put her London flat on the market and moved to a beautiful retirement home in Chichester.

So for the last three months or so I have been travelling down by train to visit her at least once a week.

But two things puzzle me about the city centre.

In fact the first – the worst – absolutely amazes me.

While many visitors and locals enjoy sitting in the shade on the stone seat ‘inside’ the market cross monument in the city centre, how is it that a hotdog and hamburger stand is given permission to set up just three paces away and smother everyone with its disgusting stink.

No other historic town in England would allow this.

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The second puzzle is as follows: my mother, who was 99 in August, walks with a three-wheel ‘walker’ frame.

But after shopping we take a 700 bus from West Street for just one stop into Avenue de Chartres to return to Marriott Lodge retirement home.

Why is it that at the West Street bus stop the wooden bench seat is fixed so high off the ground you would need to be at least 7ft tall to sit on it? (I am 6ft and there’s no chance.)

So my mother, already a bit tired, has to stand for a full ten minutes if we have just missed a bus.

Any explanations for either of these mysteries?

G Holland Hill, North London

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