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How many visitors?

AS the committee of the proposed art gallery and museum have not responded to a question I posed a few weeks back as to the numbers currently visiting the existing gallery and museum, can I ask the council to respond, after all with committing £5m of our money to the scheme I should imagine they would have carried out a comprehensive study prior to such a commitment.

So can we have the numbers published through the Adver please? Oh, and if you are listening why not take on board the overwhelming general concensus of opinion from the residents of the town and utilise our Mechanics Institute for the purposes of the arts?

Did I read that the new gallery will be situated in the drab confines of an ex-car park site because it is in “the cultural quarter” of the town? That made me laugh out loud - a threatened library (they are all threatened) and a 600-seat theatre and all of a sudden we have a cultural quarter.

If you include Foxies and Dream Lounge will it become a multi cultured quarter?

KEVIN EDMONDS Covingham Swindon

It’s in the Scriptures

RE Sweep away barriers ( Adver Peter Smith 1/3/17). Pete Smith writes “Jeff disapproves of gay people and says the Bible supports him.”

Why are you twisting my words, Mr Smith? I never said such. Shame on you.

He asks: in what sense do gay people behave unnaturally? Mr Smith is clearly not interested in the Biblical explanation offered so let’s turn the question on it’s head: how can gay “marriage” and what that entails be natural? This is the reason the debate started.

Furthermore, he says that many Christians will dispute my interpretation. Who exactly, Mr Smith? Bring them forth and their scriptural arguments!

Even Greek Pagan thinkers condemned the practice (Plato - Dialogue of Love) as “unnatural,” and therefore immoral. Are homosexuals and lesbians who practice unnatural sex following God’s commandment “be fruitful and increase in number” (Genesis 1:28)? What exactly do they produce, Mr Smith?

What homosexuals get up to is none of my business, but when they agitate for “marriage” and call it holy and with God’s approval, that is another matter.

Paul is perfectly clear: homosexual conduct leads people to destruction. To teach otherwise is tantamount to sending people to Hell.

No doubt there are many who would like to rewrite the Holy Bible to suit their own agenda, but the Bible says that anyone who removes or adds to scripture comes under an immediate curse.

Mr Smith says: “I won’t comment on theological arguments on the subject.” It shows.

JEFF ADAMS Bloomsbury Swindon

We won’t be isolated

IN his letter (Mar 3) Mr CN Westerman is very concerned about leaving the Single Market which he describes as a hard Brexit.

The EU referendum was originally promised by David Cameron in the General Election 2015.

David Cameron made it perfectly clear during the referendum campaign that leaving the EU would also involve leaving the Single Market.

Outside the EU there is no reason why Britain could not cooperate in a friendly way with many other countries on trade and other issues. Leaving the EU is not isolationism. It is simply taking back control of our economy and our lives while trading freely with the whole world.

NOEL GARDNER Carlisle Avenue Swindon

Build for the future

THIS National Apprenticeship Week (NAW), we are calling on more young people from Swindon to consider construction as a future career. Construction offers a rewarding and fulfilling career, with six out of ten company owners starting life as an apprentice.

Our research shows that the South West needs 20,000 extra recruits in the next five years to meet demand. We can’t build Hinkley Point and the homes that we need without the skills and talent in place to deliver. We want to encourage more young people to take up construction apprenticeships and support the firms that want to take apprentices on.

DEBORAH MADDEN Regional Delivery Manager Construction Industry Training Board

Spain’s example

MANY years ago when Spain was about to discard the peseta for the euro, I used to tour the English south coast to add to my collection of majolica antiques. Then I went with the family on holiday to Southern Spain to Fuengirola. The English south coast in general had closed shops and in many areas was run down.

Aside from the cheap bars and Moroccans opening their robes to show you hundreds of watches or CDs, the structure of the area of Fuengirola, from the promenade to the streets, were immaculate. I then sensed something was going wrong back at home.

Now we have the House of Swords, because have no doubt about it, they will now fall on their own misguided arrogance, dictating to the electorate that all Europeans staying in our country have a right to stay ad infinitum. Does that include foreign beggars littering the streets of our major cities? Child traffickers and brothel runners? Not to mention jailing them at British taxpayers’ expense.

Have we not a right as a free nation to decide who stays, or who goes regarding their conduct on our island that has given them sanctuary for a better life, which they abuse?

BILL WILLIAMS Merlin Way Covingham

It’s time to think again

AS a remain supporter prior to last June’s referendum on our membership of the EU, Chancellor Philip Hammond is being prudent not to spend more than he needs in the last ever ‘Spring’ Budget. He is no doubt well aware that the ‘Brexit Bubble’ is about to burst with potentially horrific consequences for the people of this country.

The news that car makers Vauxhall are being bought out by the French, where many of the parts are manufactured, is just one of the harbingers of the train crash that we are fast heading towards. A crash that will, in all likelihood, deprive the state of the ability to pay for the current NHS, let alone for any improvements to it, as demanded by many that see and understand its problems.

How much more sensible then, for the people of this country to be offered a vote over the destination that Theresa May wishes to take us down, with a parachute clause available to allow the country to return on the same terms to the EU.

This decision has to be made by the people, because having once had the EU referendum, our Parliament with its self-serving MPs, in both the Conservative and Labour Parties, have largely lost their ability to stand up and be counted on to speak common sense, let alone to vote for it.

Of course, many things can happen between now and when we actually leave the EU. The French elections, the first round of which is due on April the 23, could lead to a Le Pen victory for the far right, or it might not.

The key to our long-term success and indeed survival as a nation, must be to maintain flexibility and not be locked to one fixed idea which originated from the thinly won result of the 23rd of June 2016. Especially here in North Wiltshire where the popular vote was to remain in the EU.

We must be imaginative and quick on our feet, and this is something that this Conservative Government just isn’t.

DR BRIAN MATHEW Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for North Wiltshire