I was recently challenged by a local resident on why the Tory administration was taking down a perfectly good car park in order to spend £15m of tax payer’s money on another car park. I did my best to explain that it was part of their regeneration plan for the town. He was not convinced that made sense or would be cost effective for the local tax payer.

It is now nearly nine years since the Conservative administration took control of regenerating the town centre and not a lot has happened. To put it into perspective they have emptied out Wharf Green, messed up Whalebridge and the surrounding roads, installed a leaky fountain and have inspired us all with a plan for an elderly people’s dwelling and a new car park.

Recently they announced another £6.4 m of borrowing and spending on a car park and the Wyvern Theatre. This proposal pre-empts a town centre review being carried out by Forward Swindon which involves Swindon residents and businesses.

I believe this administration should be listening to the people of Swindon on the future plans for the town. I don’t know if they have any regard for this review, you would think not based on this pre-election announcement. This seems to be part of a running theme of arrogance and disconnect between them and the people of Swindon The Princes Street car park has been kept free from development to enable a Civic Centre to be built. A new Civic Centre would enable large events to take place and attract the best performers and shows to Swindon.

With more than £21m being spent by this Tory administration on parking changes wouldn’t it been better and more cost effective to fulfil the original plan rather than wasting tax payer’s money unnecessarily?

Bob Wright Ward Councillor for Central ward Southbrook Street Swindon

Queen’s the boss

Could Alan Dempster explain why he thinks that the Queen doesn’t have a choice in the matter of dictators being invited to the palace? Is she an automaton?

Some years ago her husband, the Duke, visited Alfredo Stroessner, a vicious dictator of Paraguay, who tortured and had executed any opposer of his rule.

At the height of the terror, the Duke visited him, courtesy of British taxpayers, and told the beaming tyrant: “It’s a pleasant change to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.” The Queen, I may add, is HIS boss, and to do certain things she has to approve. Get it?

Less than a mile away the torture chambers were in full swing, crammed with screaming victims.

Alan Dempster says: “And as for taking the pensioners’ money (ie the Queen), how ridiculous. He should get his facts right.”

Alan Dempster seems to have problems with basic comprehension. I NEVER said the Queen took the pensioners’ money. She was rebuffed! I said that in 2010 “the Queen ATTEMPTED to obtain millions of pounds for palace repairs from a State fund set aside for energy-saving changes to homes and hospitals.”

I have the original source here in front of me: Date, author, the reputable newspaper, if you wish to know who the source is I shall inform you.

But first I think an apology is in order, don’t you, Alan Dempster? My hopes are not high, however.

J Adams Bloomsbury Swindon

Entry is needed

As a Queensfield Estate resident, I would like to thank Paul Cook (Adver March 2) for his support of the “Keep Queensfield Open” campaign. He does mention that personally he can vary the times of his visit to Wyevale garden centre/Co-op etc. But what of the people who work at all these businesses, from Handy Garden Machinery, to Arkell’s Brewery? Maybe it’s because I volunteered for more than 20 years in the management of Swindon Chamber of Commerce (three times as president), that I see things from a different perspective to some of my council colleagues. To me, people needing to get to work (and maybe shopping, or dropping off at school on the way) get my highest priority.

I am sure the new Localism Bill does not intend to give carte blanche to NIMBYism, but seeks to get a balance between the needs of residents who work, residents who don’t – and anyone else who has good reason to use local routes. Bear in mind, the distance from one side of this “no entry” sign to the other, even using other local roads as “rat runs”, is the same in time and distance as travelling from Queensfield to the County Ground – also in the rush hour. I checked this on Google Earth.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been a strong voice for the Queensfield/Kingsdown area since 1970, but this area has always been overlooked for funding. It was a failed promise around 1990 that Hyde Road would be opened to the Groundwell Industrial Estate, which would have created a Queensfield by-pass.

I have to make it clear that I am a Borough Councillor (indeed, I was Borough Mayor in 2005/6), but I am not a councillor for this ward, though I have applied to stand here. However, I consider what has been done is wrong in many respects and I feel I have to get involved. The ‘Experiment’ should be suspended immediately and examined in the public forum.

I have asked for the issue to be raised at the Localities Meeting at Meadowcroft Community rooms on Addison Crescent on Wednesday 14th from 6.30pm.

The meeting will start at 7pm. I am sure this will be well attended and will give everyone the opportunity to express a point of view and perhaps to demand the suspension of the existing prohibition. There is a petition which must be approaching 1000 signatures by now – this is no small issue!

Ray Fisher, Cricklade Rd Queensfield

Area’s a state

I have recently read a couple of letters in your letters page concerned with the state of Rodbourne.

I must say I agree entirely with M G Bunce’s comments. It is sad to see the levels of litter, graffiti and dog-fouling continue to increase, making the whole area look rundown.

Mannington Recreation Ground is also well overdue a clean up and we seem to have the oldest and shabbiest children’s playground in Swindon.

Money that was planned for refurbishment of it, was quickly taken away when the coalition was formed. Can anyone (local councillors, residents, Swindon Council) help to restore Rodbourne to its former glory. I see that street clean ups, fly-tipping removal and such are commonplace in other wards of Swindon, so perhaps it is time that Western ward received the same treatments.

A Rodbourne resident Montague Street Rodbourne

It’s vandalism

It was depressing to see the artist’s impression of the Kevin McCloud’s development in Gorse Hill, in your paper, especially when compared to the wonderful natural landscape pictured in the inset.

I used to play in this area as a child and remember the bird song, the cawing of the crows by day and the shriek of foxes on a winter’s night and it saddens me that it will be replaced by the horrid and sterile environment of the picture. This area is going to be vandalised.

On the reverse of this article when I turned the page was one about youngsters tree planting on Merton fields, lots of smiling kids planting trees, especially a cheeky little chap called Callum. None of these will vandalise the fields in the future and they would discourage others from doing so.

If Steve Thompson’s plan for the allotments was adopted, local schoolchildren could help with the planting and offenders on community payback could do the maintenance and this would give every one good reason not to vandalise the area Jessie Fox Redhouse Way Swindon

Scales of justice?

Justice Lord Turnbull has called the selling of fish by 17 Scottish fishermen “an episode of disgrace” and imposed fines of about £1m in total on the men. True, they did breach EU fishing quotas but surely what would have been an even bigger disgrace was dumping of thousands of dead fish, at a time of such shortage in fish stocks, merely to meet “the regulations”.

The Common Fisheries Policy has led to the needless destroying of an estimated 800,000 tons of perfectly good fish every year, at a cost estimated to the British economy as £3.5bn, and the loss of 97,000 British jobs. It is yet another much heralded “benefit” of being in the EU! For this “benefit” alone we, the taxpayer, pump over £5 n each year into the EU’s leaky coffers on top of all the other finance we send there.

What was a genuine “episode of disgrace” was a British judge sitting in a British court upholding foreign imposed laws and yet more proof, if any more were needed, that our laws are subservient to those of the EU.

Alex Salmond is fond of calling for a divorce from Westminster and Home Rule for Scotland. Don’t cases like this prove that it is not Westminster which governs Scotland but the EU which rules the UK?

Greg Heathcliffe Okus Road Swindon