Tesco is not "creating" 20,000 jobs (Report, 5 March). For every person employed at a new supermarket, an average of five other people locally lose their jobs. So while Tesco may well be "employing" another 20,000 people, it will actually destroy a further 100,000 jobs. And since local shops employ an average of one person for every £50,000 of annual turnover, while for supermarkets the figure is £250,000 per job, this will also represent millions of pounds a year being taken out of (already struggling) local economies.
Tony Green
Ipswich, Suffolk
• I am not sure a co-operative housing community would be enough to resolve Mary's sad plight, at this stage of her life, in rural Cornwall (Report, 1 March; Letters, 5 March). But the Older Women's Co-housing group in London has been trying for years to establish mutually supportive, self-run co-housing communities as a model for older people in the UK. Readers would not believe how difficult it is to achieve this. Recent initiatives by some housing associations may lead to change, but the attitudes of many local authorities, planners and old age organisations remain rooted in the dark ages.
Maria Brenton
London
• Your editorial (2 March) in praise of Lord Byron's 1812 speech on the proposed frames bill in the Lords caused me to re-read the whole of this speech. As you say, it's not just his poems but this inspirational and elegantly phrased address which, with very few changes, would be a valid and powerful critique of most current government policy if spoken today in either house.
John Winstone
Brighton
• As Joseph Stalin said: "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything" ('We have won. Glory to Russia', 5 March).
Jeff Smith
Ebbw Vale, Gwent
• Up here in Cumbria our ice-cream van arrives on Thursdays at 18.30 every week, rain, snow or maybe sunshine (Letters, 3 March). What's so unusual about ice-cream in winter?
John Phelan
Motherby, Cumbria