Subsidies for some

COUN David Renard states that no amount of taxpayer funded ‘subsidy’ is acceptable for Lydiard House and Park and for this reason the people of Swindon, according to the councillor, will have to accept the transferring of the house and park to a third party.

However, in what many might regard as a contradictory position Coun Renard is unwilling to take the ‘tough decision’ with Steam that he is prepared to do with Lydiard, and that is remove Steam’s £200k subsidy.

For the subsidy to Lydiard has been removed from the 2016/17 budget despite no decision having been taken with regard to its future.

Coun Renard in his column (SA 14 Jan) suggests there is still a £2.7m funding gap, at a stroke he could make it £2.5m, albeit his popularity would plummet like a stone.

I applaud the councillor for his desire to bring a new museum and art gallery to Swindon but, as he well knows, there is a high degree of financial risk associated with museums and the viability of such a facility is highly doubtful.

When challenged on a previous occasion as to the level of subsidy the new SMAG would require, Coun Renard said: “The expectation is that the subsidy will be no more than the current sum with a drive to get it as close to zero as possible.”

From this, one can assume that, while no level of subsidy is acceptable for Lydiard, the same cannot be said for his latest visionary concept.

DES MORGAN Caraway Drive, Swindon

Unanswered questions

I WENT to the meeting for the debate on leasing off Lydiard Park.

The chairman started by saying he didn’t want any political points made, and then alienated political parties, when he may, in the future, be glad of their help.

The meeting was very well attended, and certainly sought the answers to the problem of this arrangement.

There were many questions and some of the answers left a lot to be answered.

One of the audience asked the the Labour member on the panel how he would raise the money needed for the subsidy if he won this year’s election in May.

The question I would have put to Coun Perkins, was, if you cannot afford the subsidy for Lydiard Park, how can you afford the £2m you have just given to Thamesdown Transport, which can only be seen as a means of keeping it solvent.

On a different tack, a recent article in the Advertiser told us how since the leisure centres had been leased off the numbers of people using them had, in some cases, had trebled.

At a meeting last year, Coun Perkins said since the Link Centre had been leased off, the numbers using it daily had gone up from 450 to 990.

Surely this must be seen as incompetence on the part of the council.

At the Lydiard meeting, we were told that since the council ‘rearranged’ the daily costs of the park, the numbers had come down in a dramatic way. Food for thought.

T REYNOLDS Wheeler Avenue, Swindon

PM’s EU assumptions

DAVID Cameron is offering us a referendum to leave or not leave the EU but Mr Cameron does not want to leave, so no contingency plan is in place to keep the country going if the vote is a big fat YES to leave.

I think there is a bit of wishful thinking going on at No 10 and No 11 Downing Street that the great British public would not dare go against the wishes of the prime minister and will vote to stay in.

Watch out Downing Street, it will be a close yes or no to leave and the way we are being treated by Brussels it could be the old Winston Churchill upturned arm with two fingers saying enough’s enough, we are going on our own. We did for 2,000 years pre EU.

JOHN L CROOK Haydon Wick, Swindon

Water bloomin’ rip-off

LIKE their regular water leaks, it’s all coming out now, isn’t it?

The water boards, it seems, have been ripping off their customers to the tune of £1.2bn.

This was an industry supposedly privatised to increase efficiency and bring down prices.

Why aren’t these industries subject to the same market forces as others?

Why can’t we actually choose which water board we want, like other essential suppliers?

There is no choice whatsoever with water – it’s a private monopoly.

Water should belong to us all, and its high time it was returned to public ownership so that prices can be regulated for the benefit of consumers rather than shareholders, without having to rely on the useless Ofwat.

We are being ripped off and we can do nothing about it. Renationalise them.

JEFF ADAMS Bloomsbury Swindon

Cicero had it right...

HERE is the best quote of any era: “The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance” – Cicero, 55 BC So, evidently we’ve learned nothing over the past 2,071 years.

DAVID HODGSON Welcombe Avenue, Swindon

Hospital care was great

ONCE again I had to call on the GWH for help. I phoned for an ambulance at 12.15 am due to a heart problem.

The ambulance car was with me within 15 minutes. A very nice paramedic said I needed to go to the A&E and he took me there.

I was there for nine hours. I had the same care and attention that I had a few weeks earlier. I cannot find fault.

Thank you staff for all that you once more did for me.

JANET WOODHAM Scotby Avenue, Old Town