WHERE do you get the best tomatoes in Britain? The best oysters, the best turbot? The best spuds? Where can you buy some of the freshest roast coffee beans in the UK?

My answer to all these questions is - Blackburn.

No, I've not gone soft. I love my grub. I travel around the UK a great deal, and I enjoy shopping for food, whether in supermarkets, local shops, or markets.

And I can compare the vast range of food now available in London with that on offer in the rest of the country.

My impressions are not scientific. They are personal. But they are not sentimental.

The best tomatoes I've tasted in a long while came the other week from John Woods' stall on the three-day market in Blackburn.

I bought a kilo of them one Saturday, and realised when I got home I'd gobbled nearly half of them in the car.

John grows them at his nursery and market garden in Much Hoole, between Preston and Southport.

He tells me that he doesn't use the new fancy methods for his crops - he sticks them in the ground instead, which is no doubt the reason why they taste so good (so do his potatoes, and beans, and the rest).

They are cheaper than the "speciality" tomatoes you can buy in supermarkets, all wrapped in cellophane.

Oysters are a treat. The ones I bought a couple of weeks ago - again on Blackburn's market - were terrific.

So are the kippers and the white fish. You'd pay twice as much in London for it - like the turbot I bought last weekend - and it wouldn't be nearly as fresh.

I haven't bought from all the stalls on the market but friends tell me of the quality of Whitakers the butchers, Greens for chicken and cut meat and Margerisons whose turkey trade at Christmas is staggering.

As for coffee, I've stopped buying it in London. I go to the Exchange Coffee Company In Fleming Square. The aroma is so strong that you can find your way to the shop by just following your nose.

These are just a few of the excellent stall-holders and shopkeepers still in the centre of Blackburn, run by people who are really committed to providing quality and service for their customers.

And we've also got in Blackburn some excellent high street stores, like M&S, Debenhams, BHS, Boots and WH Smith.

Why am I saying all this?

The reason is that we ought better to value what we've got in Blackburn. Compared with many similar centres, we have choice, variety and, most importantly, a number of quality traders. who have worked out how to "differentiate" themselves from the bigger retailers.

And it's going to get better.

At long last demolition men have begun knocking down the execrable "Lord Square". Improvements to the shopping centre car park are about to start; and I guess that in 18 months to two years we'll then see the fruits of all the investment in the centre - including Margo Grimshaw's pioneering up-scale homes development by Fleming Square, and a similar project adjacent to the Cathedral too.

It's an exciting time. A mix of the old and the new promises much for Blackburn, so let's all value it and support it.