THE words ‘water feature’ have terrorised Swindonians ever since the one in The Parade was removed decades ago. It was a feature of the BHS side of The Parade from its opening in around 1966, when Alma Cogan was the pop star of the day who graced the opening.

I chuckled at the recent suggestion in your letters page that the new sculpture looked like a urinal. The thought had not occurred to me; but it is perhaps a well-deserved comment upon something imposed upon a primary public space without consultation.

People weren’t asked about the clock-in-a-tree, and they weren’t asked about removing it less than 10 years later. No wonder everyone has their own cheeky verdict!

But today I looked at an 1899 map of Swindon town centre, showing the canal, with a crossing at Regent Street. A public house (The Golden Lion) is marked by the letters PH. But what a shock when I saw a urinal was perched atop the crossing, presumably emptying into the canal!

So the new (now old) Swindon Company has left us with a regenerated streetscape, which features a modern memorial to an historic structure which has been gone so long that no one alive today even remembers it!

It is a fittingly ironic memorial to an unlamented, derelict organisation... ... an organisation which did not anticipate the potential presented by the re-building of the BHS building, where all can now see the lost opportunity for a public open space - not in Wharf Green (never a wharf, and no longer green) and not in a new Union Square (union of just what exactly?), but at the very central crossing point of the modern town centre.

The light and space opened up by the recent demolition should be cause to ask whether Swindon has been well-served.

Those who called for a proper master plan for the whole town centre, rather than disjointed these development areas with meaningless names, can feel vindicated.

Personally I don’t really mind the look of this ‘water feature’; but like so many of Swindon’s ‘public sculptures’, it does not sit happily where it has been put. It crowds the busy crossroads and does not benefit the public in proportion to its cost. It is titled Stacked Fountain - another name for a waterfall perhaps?

It will be fun to see who gets to turn the tap on! Perhaps the Duke of Edinburgh could be persuaded to do so, as he unveiled the Millennium Square not so long ago; he is also remembered for a much earlier visit, with a plaque under the lovely catalpa tree in The Parade! Clearly, we should hear what he has to say about the march of progress in Swindon.

Now let’s find out what happened to the plaque unveiled by the Queen in Wharf Green in 1995, and the plaque dedicating the oak tree near McDonald’s to the twinning of Swindon with Salzgitter.

At least the oak and catalpa are still standing! Perhaps we should hurry to have them listed.

MARTHA PARRY

London Street

Swindon