Gallery won’t help

MR ELLORY-VAN Decker, the Chief Executive of the SMAG Trust, a body charged with developing and producing the butterfly building on the old Wyvern car park site waxes lyrical about how a new museum will ‘regenerate’ the daytime and night-time economies and ‘put the heart back into the town centre’(Adver, March 17).

Fine words which are as anodyne as they are meaningless.

The leader of the council is on record as stating that he expects about 90,000 people a year to visit the new museum, a figure which is unlikely to be achieved as we all know it is a ‘guesstimate’ designed to impress and persuade us that spending £22.5m is a good thing.

This council has always erred on the high side when assessing potential benefits and always on the low side when calculating costs.

Coun Renard has also been a little coy about the level of subsidy for the new museum and in the past has suggested it will be “no more than the current sum” that is the subsidy given to the Old Town facility.

I will leave your readers to draw their own conclusions as to whether such a view makes sense, especially as there will be no charge for general access to the new museum.

The Steam Museum is a good example of how poor SBC is at managing heritage – when it was first opened visitor figures of 200,000 were quickly reduced by half and in 2001 we were told the projected attendance would be 150,000 a year.

Fifteen years later Steam, as a museum alone is not attracting 150,000 visitors – although, in fairness, the subsidy is now less than £250,000.

Mr Ellory-Van Decker trumpets the party line but Swindon residents all know that a fancy building will do very little, if anything, to ‘regenerate’ the daytime and night-time economies or ‘put the heart back into the town centre.’

DES MORGAN

Caraway Drive

Swindon

Search for family

I AM making a desperate bid to trace relatives of Lt Hartington in time for the centenary of his death in July this year.

A few years ago I was in touch with his nephew, a retired Colonel living in the Chippenham area, but not long afterwards I was seriously injured in a road accident.

When I recovered I tried to contact the Colonel again by phone but the number no longer appeared to be valid.

John Hartington was born in Mexico, where his father was working as manager of a textile mill.

The family returned to Heywood, in Lancashire, and John and his brothers and sisters attended Bury Grammar School.

John was a member of our school cadet corps, was a member of a highly successful 1st XI football team and captain of the school cricket team.

He was school captain in 1914, leaving at Christmas of that year to enlist in the Lancashire Fusiliers, our local regiment.

He was transferred to the newly-formed Machine Gun Corps in 1916, winning the Military Cross at the battle of the Somme.

A few weeks after receiving his award in person from HM King George V he was killed during a German artillery barrage on British positions near the Belgian city of Ypres.

He is buried in Lijssenthoek Brittish Cemetery, Poperinge, Belgium.

We shall be paying tribute to John and other Bury Grammar School Boys killed in 1917 in a special display and will be visiting John’s grave on our 24th annual school battlefields tour in October.

We would very much like to get in touch with members of the family in order to involve them in our commemoration of this gallant soldier.

MARK HONE

Head of History & Politics

Bury Grammar School Boys

Tenterden Street, Bury, BL9 0HN

Tel: 0161 696 8600

Email: mhone@burygrammar.com

Weedkiller safe to use

I WELCOME the landmark scientific decision that the widely-used herbicide glyphosate should not be classified as a carcinogen.

The European Chemicals Agency’s Risk Assessment Committee has published its conclusions following a comprehensive review of the safety of the weed-killing agent, which was originally marketed under the name of Roundup.

The opinion follows more than a year of debate over glyphosate’s future in the EU, after many environmental groups had called for it to be banned, due to its alleged carcinogenic properties.

After granting only a limited extension last year to glyphosate’s license for use, the EU Commission sought greater scientific clarity by asking the agency to draw up a definitive classification for glyphosate.Mrs Girling, Conservative Spokesman on the Environment and Public Health, and also a member of the Parliament’s Agriculture Committee, hailed the opinion as

This was a means to end once and for all the hysteria and start working on the basis of robust scientific evidence.

This decision confirms what the EU and other scientific bodies have been saying since this debate began in 2015.

It represents the first step in restoring certainty for farmers, so that they can continue responsibly using this important substance to provide us with safe and nutritious food.

I hope that, with positive opinions from the agency and also the European Food Safety Authority, a full renewal of glyphosate’s authorisation is only a matter of time.

The Commission must now take into account the newly agreed classification when next deciding on the renewal of the approval of glyphosate.

A report last year by ADAS, the UK’s largest agricultural consultancy, estimated a total ban on glyphosate would reduce UK production of winter wheat and winter barley by 12 per cent.

It would reduce the production of oilseed rape by 10 per cent and would cost the industry a total of €633m a year.

JULIE GIRLING

South West MEP

Show is a delight

THE Western Players’ Don’t Dress for Dinner is an excellent play with laughter throughout.

Confusion ensues when an weekend rendezvous is set up for Bernard and his mistress, old friend Robert is also invited to provide an alibi.

When the wife finds out Robert is coming plans are cancelled, because, yes, they have a secret too.

A cook has been hired who causes confusion by arriving at the time the mistress should arrive and there is a case of mistaken identity as both are called Suzi.

What can possibly go wrong?

The set is very simple and effective. There are innuendoes and lots of hi-jinks, but most of all confusions.

The whole cast were excellent, showing perfect timing with one liners etc.

Roll on the next play from this great theatre group - they never disappoint.

CHRIS KYLE

Wanborough

Are offices needed?

THE council has a thankless job of trying to regenerate the town centre and they always get lots of negative feedback.

However, I feel they are their own worst enemies. The Kimmerfields development includes an office building but you only have to take a short walk to find numerous empty office blocks, not to mention the awful eyesore of the boarded up former offices above the railway station.

The council’s argument is that the new development provides the “right kind of offices.”

The former Book Club Associates and Nationwide office blocks in Farnsby Street have been turned into apartments and the same has happened at the One Fifty development in Victoria Road. It makes no sense.

KELLY COLLINS

Lyndhurst Crescent, Swindon

Tower is still safe

CONCERNS have been expressed over the forthcoming installation of mobile phone equipment in the belfry of St Peter’s Church, Marlborough.

The trustees of St Peter’s are confident they will receive unequivocal assurance from CTIL (Vodafone) that there will be no risk to people climbing the helical stairway, and passing the directional electronic equipment in the belfry, on their way to the top.

We look forward to escorting many more visitors up the tower giving them an insight into the history of St Peter’s and providing them with a breathtaking view of the town.

JEREMY YORK

Constable of St Peter’s Tower