ADVER readers have suggested some new homes for Swindon's Brunel statue.

The eight-foot tall statue, which has stood in Havelock Square since 1971, will be on the move if Swindon Council's plans for the Granville Street car park come to fruition.

This will see new shops and walkways in the area between the Brunel shopping centre and Commercial Road.

As we reported last week, no site for the relocation has been named yet.

We asked what Adver readers thought, and Krystyna Bartoszewska, of Hunt Street, said that the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet Centre would be a good home, as would the Steam Museum or the railway station so the statue could greet visitors to the town.

She said: "There is some waste land behind the Queen's Tap opposite the station which looks dreadful and is an awful sight to people who have just arrived in Swindon what a first impression to get on your arrival as you have to walk past it to get into the town centre!

"This could be turned into a seating area and the statue could be placed there too as a focal point, in which case the whole base could be moved with the statue.

"We are talking about major town centre regeneration and yet it has been allowed for this waste land to stay there for years and years, and it is being used as a rubbish tip, with all sorts of rubbish there, including a child's buggy more recently.

"This wasteland has been there so long that I am sure the majority of people living in Swindon will not know or remember it used to be a petrol service station at one time."

Retired council worker John Myram, 76, of Covingham, said: "It has got to be left in the town centre.

"I would like to see it put just below the war memorial in some vicinity where the Tabernacle used to be, looking down Regent Street."

Martha Parry, from the New Mechanics' Institution Preservation Trust, which is based at the old railway museum in Faringdon Road, said: "It is very badly placed where it is.

"There is a feeling around the town that Brunel is in the wrong place.

"The suggestion we have talked about is in Canal Walk the passageway going down to Faringdon Road, where there are some steps.

"If it was put on the steps he would be looking towards the station.

"It would need to be on a short plinth."