It was fascinating to read the account of the preparations by campaigners for the potentially epic struggle, set in irreplaceable Sussex woodland at Titnore Woods, and now under way (The Argus, May 31).

While my memories of the treetop protests mounted by Swampy et al at the scene of the Newbury bypass in 1997 are hazy (like many people's, I suspect), it is clear the public is becoming less willing to see supermarkets and developers ride roughshod over the aspirations of those who ordinarily lead their lives far from the media's focus.

The public only appear be given two options and both mean taking to their cars. They can then either purchase cheap food flown, then conveyed by juggernaut, around the globe by the large supermarkets or they can baulk at the macadamised madness of so-called "shed shopping" and opt, instead, for higherpriced farm-shop produce.

It appears a general distaste has arisen for how supermarkets and their partners have come to dictate how large parts of our collective lives are to be lived.

The local support The Argus reports for the Titnore Woods campaigners seems to represent a more widespread antipathy towards the unchecked and, hitherto virtually unaccountable, depredations of over-powerful conglomerates which are increasingly encountered by people in all walks of life.

-Stephen J Williams, York Road, Hove