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Ask what we want

HADRIAN Ellory-van Dekker, the director and chief executive of the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery Trust, posed an interesting question, “Why shouldn’t we dream Big?”(SA February 24).

It is Mr Dekker’s mission to promote the interests of the trust which he represents.

But, in doing so, he fails to recognise residents’ real concerns and shows a blinkered disregard for the serious issues facing Swindon.

If Mr Dekker looked through the Swindon Advertiser on the same day as his report appeared he may have found some useful pointers.

He could have read the report “Sick to death of all this rubbish”, in which Gorse Hill resident, Maurice Small, describes how he is “fed up with all the rubbish and fly tipping going on in the town, and in Gorse Hill specifically.”

He could also have read the report “Elderly told they have to cope alone”, where residents in a sheltered housing complex are in fear for their safety after it was announced their scheme manager will be leaving at the end of the month and will not be replaced.

There are numerous examples where lack of funding is creating significant problems for people’s quality of life.

Swindon Borough Council is dumping many of its responsibilities for service provision onto parish councils and in doing so has imposed substantial council tax increases on to the tax payers of Swindon.

In the interest of true democracy, accountability and value for money I propose Swindon tax payers should be given the opportunity to answer a questionnaire. A suggested format could be:

“Swindon Borough Council has set aside a £5m fund. During a time of severe austerity we would like to offer you the opportunity to participate in a valuable exercise in democracy and tell us how you would like to use this money to benefit your community.

From the options below please use a numerical sequence to indicate your preferences with number 1 being your top priority.”

n A reduction in council tax

n Funding for adult services

n Improving road traffic management

n Improving education facilities

n Improving litter clearance

n Funding for Lydiard Park

n Funding for libraries

n Improved care facilities for the elderly

n Repairing potholes

n Help for the homeless

n Road safety improvements

n A new museum and art gallery

n Other preferences - please state

Given the opportunity to express my preferences a new museum would be nowhere near the top of the list.

If the new museum and art gallery project is such a good idea the private sector would be scrambling to fund it. Who knows what the long term revenue costs will be for tax paying public?

It seems to me, during a time of severe austerity and public suffering, using a substantial sum of tax payers’ money to fund such a scheme has a bad smell of decadence.

K KANE

Wharf Road, Wroughton

....

Art centre unnecessary

I READ in your paper about somebody trying to justify spending upwards of £22m on a new art centre.

Having found out my council and parish tax is going up by 10.8 per cent because the council cannot make ends meet, spending this sort of money on an art centre which we do not need does not make me happy.

This feeling will, I am sure, be shared by the 80 or 90 people who are about to be made redundant by the council.

We need shops, not flats or an art centre to regenerate the town.

ALAN DUNCAN

Dudley Road, Walcot, Swindon

....

Sweep away barriers

REGARDING the argument on same sex marriage; I won’t comment on theological arguments on the subject.

But I support equality, so I am glad that there are Christians who can argue against the notion that the Bible condemns homosexuality.

Our society would be better for all if barriers to full equality were swept away.

Jeff Adams disapproves of gay people and says the Bible supports him in his disapproval. Many Christians will dispute his interpretations of the Bible. I’ll just comment on his reasoning.

Jeff writes, “Christians are said to be homophobic simply because they condemn homosexual behaviour as sin.”

No; only the Christians (and others) who condemn homosexual behaviour as sin are said to be homophobic, for obvious reasons.

Then Jeff writes “anyone who opposes the unnatural practice” is being accused of harbouring hatred, intolerance and bigotry.”

Well yes, and rightly so. In what sense do gay people behave unnaturally?

Jeff later refers to the Biblical demand that all should either be married or single and celibate. If any sexual practice is unnatural this sounds pretty much like it fits the bill.

PETER SMITH

Woodside Avenue, Swindon

....

Storing up problems

THE State Governors of the USA held a winter meeting, in which one Governor pleaded that the US government had a duty adequately to feed the 13 million American children who were regularly going hungry.

In order to coax her listeners to use their votes sympathetically for this ideal, she found it necessary to attempt to invoke their self-interest, that they needed these children healthy, for them later to serve the US economy as adults.

The situation is exactly the same in Britain, that citizens who vote Conservative cannot be shamed about children depending on Food Banks in the sixth richest country on the planet.

These voters are quite impervious to any criticism, because their only interest is their own perception of their self-interest, which is grossly mistaken, of course, since selfishness twists the sound working of their brains.

The lack of any principles in their thinking, makes them puppets operated by strings pulled by the national media.

Since no appeal to their compassion shames UK Tories, one hopes to gain their attention by pointing out the same disgrace on a larger scale in the most powerful nation on Earth, as one manifestation of a wholly corrupt economy.

If these voters had more imagination, they could see that the injustices deliberately forced on the poor and vulnerable, by the UK Government of this generation, must become the hostility, violence and crime of the next generation. They are not very intelligent.

C N WESTERMAN

Meadow Rise

Brynna, Mid Glam

....

Romans did it better

THE Romans built a world empire by conquering cities and adding them to their empire.

The Romans became very rich by expanding their borders in this way.

Modern warfare seems to always involve flattening the cities.

At the end of a modern battle all we are left with is a pile of bricks and thousands of refugees with no homes or jobs.

When ISIS are cleared out of one city they withdraw to the next city.

Modern warfare involves following ISIS and flattening all the houses where ever they go.

Huge areas of Syria and Iraq have been flattened using these destructive tactics.

It seems that the Romans were more efficient than modern armies at capturing cities intact and not simply pounding them into rubble.

TERRY HAYWARD

Burnham Road, Swindon

.....

Where is money going?

I NOTE we have more and more cuts to services again, small shops are closing down because they can’t afford the taxes imposed on them, so they cease trading therefore the councils don’t get their contributions. It’s madness.

The poor old hospitals are just about scraping by, some roads are almost impassable (all I have seen the councils do is dig them up) bin collections are being reduced, houses are being built yes, but at prices people can’t afford.

I could go on... but what I am wondering, why is the Government so strapped for cash?

Where is all this money going that they are squeezing out of us, I haven’t seen anything to our advantage yet.

CAROLE GLEED

Proud Close

Purton

....

It’s all our cash

THE Government, as well as all British councils, have no money of their own. It is hard earned cash from tax payers’ contributions. Money gained by working shifts, in factories and building sites, working in hospitals, for the police and the fire service.

.Hospitals, the police, the fire service. You name it, to mention but a few. To bring up their children and keep a roof over their heads.

Any arguments on that one to these pages ? Be they left wing, right wing or liberal, regarding that undeniable mathematical fact. I presume none, but you never know

My point? A suicide bomber received £1m at British taxpayers’ expense. Not forgetting the parasitical lawyers joining the same gravy train paid for by us.

Their shameless financial greed is being given priority before the safety of British citizens, of all colour and creeds.

They increase council tax. Shut down children’s care homes on the alter of austerity. Give billions away in foreign aid, on borrowed money. Not to mention paying the European Disunion millions as it disintegrates.

Everybody must have noticed the ones making these outrageous decisions spending our money are all doing well from them at our expense.Or am I missing something?

BILL WILLIAMS

Merlin Way, Swindon