ANOTHER week and another pub taken over by a supermarket (‘Second Village Pub to become supermarket’, Daily Echo, January 2).

I’m not surprised local residents are angry.

Midanbury residents in my own Southampton Itchen constituency remain furious at Tesco’s attempt to bully the community into accepting a fourth Express store within a mile radius, on a site where a local pub, The Castle, had been open for decades until August last year.

Pubs make up the heart of communities, supermarkets do not. Yet CAMRA has found that over 200 pubs have been turned into convenience stores in the last three years.

There is a crisis in the pub industry, which is why I’m campaigning for a change in the planning laws to help local residents shape the future of their community, not a giant supermarket chain.

JOHN DENHAM, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen.