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It’s not the answer

Free parking will not solve the problems nor boost trade for anyone if the said cars who would like to take up the free parking cannot even get into and out of the town centre.

The currently gridlocked traffic all around the town centre cannot take anymore.

How do you propose to get the cars into the car parks in the first place and then out again?

Also, the council keeps on banging the drum about how skint it is and needs to keep making cutbacks on services but is willing to lose the revenue from car parking. Where is that lost cash going to come from?

All that will happen is people who normally park up in these car parks for a normal day’s work will rub their hands and say thanks for the free parking.

Sort the gridlocked areas out and get the flowing traffic sorted and then see if that has added a boost to the local trade, or are you planning to give the free parking away at night when all the shops are shut or in the evening?

John L Crook, Haydon Wick, Swindon

Call it a day, Mrs May

Let us be fair about Theresa May, or May not be. She is a stalwart trier of the indefensible. She has been clearly declared by close colleagues in her inner circle as devious and ruthless, and to put it politely a manipulating facts heiress to the creature Blair.

Where I come from in Scotland it is called lying through your teeth for self interest.

This Madame forgets one thing. Her decisions affect every human being on this island regardless of colour or creed.

We need financial security to uphold basic needs - food, heating, lighting, kids’ clothes.

In simple terms it is called the economy. The most indecisive Prime Minister in the history of my born and bred homeland dithers while Britain becomes the laughing stock of the free world. Begone Mrs May, with honour in failure before your ineptitude causes public disorder.

Bill Williams, Merlin Way, Covingham, Swindon

And here are the facts

I feel compelled to respond to the letter ‘Good golly, Miss Molly’ to highlight further the ludicrousness of this Brexit folly.

Having accused me of ‘twisting the truth’ Mr Spencer proceeds to grossly misrepresent the EU’s Freedom of Movement rules. In particular, he suggests, “any Tom, Dick and Harry” is able to enter the UK with no prospects of a job, no health insurance, no accommodation, and no money. This is unfounded. We currently have a great deal of control over who comes in to our country and who can claim benefits.

EU citizens are initially permitted to live in any member state – a reciprocal right for UK citizens we should remember – for three months. After this time, they must prove they are working, be a registered student, or have “sufficient resources”, such as savings or a pension, to support themselves and not be “a burden on the benefits system”. Far from being unconditional, the right to free movement is highly qualified.

The irony is that it is the UK’s failure to effectively enforce these EU rules, deemed by this government as too costly, that have created problems. But ending free movement altogether will leave many South West businesses and our health services without the workers they need to function effectively.

In addition, by the Government’s own calculations, Brexit will leave us billions of pounds worse off, starving the NHS and other public services. Which is exactly the opposite to what was promised.

Good golly! Brexit is simply folly.

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West