Smelly gym venue’s not fit for top stars (From Swindon Advertiser)

Smelly gym venue’s not fit for top stars

5:08pm Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Letters

We were lucky to have tickets to see Alfie Boe at the Oasis on January 18. He was fantastic; just a shame about the venue.

He was in a sports hall with a swimming pool as a backdrop and chlorine wafting through backstage.

Isn't it time Swindon Borough Council realised that Swindon needs a large entertainment venue, rather than spending millions on Union Square car park, for cars they don’t actually want us to drive to town in?

Everyone close to us in the queue, which is another issue altogether, agreed that a sports hall is an embarrassment to Swindon.

We are managing to get bigger stars to Swindon but they won’t return when they see the venue for the night. The Wyvern can’t cope with a town this size, events are sold out before they are advertised, so we have to go to Oxford and Bristol. Look at the revenue lost for Swindon.

As for the queue last night, SBC put 7.30pm PROMPT start on the tickets: we arrived at the Oasis at 7pm to find the doors not open and hundreds of people waiting outside. We got to our seats at 7.40pm and the concert was delayed until nearly 8pm.

Great advertising for SBC and this awful entertainment venue. Something needs to be done and soon.

C Hardiman Whitby Grove Swindon

We need Croft

I did not attend the Planning Committee meeting at which the Croft school application was discussed and so cannot comment on how the meeting was conducted but, had I been there, I would have asked to speak in favour of the application.

A report presented to the Council’s Cabinet in December shows over 100 children on the waiting list for reception places at Lethbridge, King William Street and Lawn schools, clearly demonstrating the need for a new school in this area.

Many of your correspondents on this issue have expressed a very simplistic view of how democracy should operate, apparently believing that if local people object to something it is the duty of their ward councillors to vote against it.

In past years the planning committee has had to deal with a number of applications for hostels, to provide accommodation and support for a variety of groups of people who are vulnerable or have special needs.

Unfortunately, hostel residents are often perceived by others as undesirable or even dangerous neighbours and these feelings of concern and fear almost always lead to large numbers of objections. If democracy operated in the way your Croft correspondents wish it to, how would unpopular but essential facilities like these ever get provided?

It should be the duty of councillors to provide the facilities and services which people need, not just those that people want. There is a big difference between the two.

Peter Gallagher Folkestone Road Swindon

...Just go now

I could not let Rod Bluh's recent letter pass. Rod Bluh asks why we don’t engage with our officials? Well, we did at the temporary Wichelstowe School discussions and were misled. “There are no plans for a permanent school,” we were told.

We attended meetings with the councillors and were ignored. We read our representatives election mail and were conned. We invited councillors to meetings with us and they didn’t come.

We attended one meeting to discuss our issues and were told to attend another, so we did, and we were restricted by process.

We attended Scrutiny panel and some were abused. We have been threatened “to mind what we say” by councillors and duped by officials and their “dodgy dossiers” and redacted photos.

Quite what else we are supposed to do, we are not sure, but we are not going to be patronised by Rod Bluh who, if he is unaware how his council operates, is unfit for his office and should go, and if part of it, go now.

Rose Harding Old Town Swindon

...Ward’s it all for?

We have seen some interesting actions from Swindon Borough Council in this last year and many indications that some of our councillors see democracy as a ‘once every four year process’.

I am now stunned by comments that came out of the recent Scrutiny meeting that appear to have the backing of major parties in Swindon.

On December 19, I asked a question at committee. I wanted to know if we could complain about our ward councillors who refused to acknowledge the significant community objection to the Croft School proposals. Note: we did not expect that any of the three would be forced to our opinion, we just asked them to represent a balanced view: That is, over 200 written objections, two local surveys and the local residents associations, all didn’t want the school. All three of our ward councillors dismissed this and refused to acknowledge this concern publicly.

When I challenged this behaviour at Scrutiny Committee, I heard very clearly from the Chair, Cllr Small, that there was no guidance, nor obligation to ward councillors to represent ward electors.

The chair thought it was undesirable to consider such advice in future. I was so surprised I thought perhaps I was unclear of his exact meaning, so I needed to check.

I wrote to Cllr Small [Labour] and also to the leaders of the three parties in Swindon Council. Did Cllr Small say/agree or infer that: “....it is undesirable that in future councillors could be mandated to acknowledge the existence of any substantial and demonstrable ward opinion on a matter, even where it may disagree with their own opinion on the matter or voting intentions”. Now, a month later I have had no further information, no dialogue, no reply.

So we are left with the opinion from all Swindon parties that they do not think that a ward councillor needs to acknowledge substantial public opinion. It seems they are happy that ward councillors make their own decisions in isolation, and hence we can all let them do what they like for four years at a time, until we get the next chance to vote them out.

Is this democracy, really? Do you like this, really? If not, I ask you all to challenge anyone who asks for your vote this May to change this sorry position and to listen to their electorate week by week, issue by issue. And I ask the leaders of Swindon politicians to be brave, change the rules for ward councillors and stick up for democracy.

Colin Doubleday Swindon

...In a Soviet style

Councillor Bluh gives his endorsement of the scheme to build a school on the Croft site (Adver January 14). He mentions how, in democracy, some lose out. To my knowledge the only voice to have spoken, that on the NIMBYs in this issue; there seems to have been no loud voicing from locals ‘for’ the scheme.

So why does he mention democracy in the argument? The council is behaving in old Soviet Block style of the command economy; plans have been made and will be implemented.

The vast majority of SBC’s current councillors take the Conservative Party Whip and the current leader of this party has gone on record, on several occasions, saying that he wishes to vastly reduce immigration to this country from hundreds of thousands per year, to tens of thousands.

Surely, these Conservative councillors, if not the SBC planners (local civil servants) should countenance that previous projections of primary school places have been inflated by previous trends in settlement of new fertile young immigrants.

N Gardner Carlisle Avenue Swindon

A counter view

It is true that more often local leaders grant regular articles in the Adver, but there are no responses to their views. Is it cool to take for granted everything has been said without examining it?

Isn’t it right to question their policies; political and economic plans which will, eventually, affect us as citizens? And isn’t it the time Adver did the right thing and grant other proper viewpoints?

Take the higher tuition fees policy. Why did the two local MPs vote for higher tuition fees? What about the spending cuts of 2010 and 2011?

How many councillors and MPs of Swindon are cutting down their spending in order to contribute to the national public cuts? What about creating jobs in 2012 and economic growth?

All of these affect the people of this town which infers that it is the time to hear the people’s argument in order to improve the living of the people of Swindon.

Axmed Bahjad Fleet Street Swindon

Right royal pain

Here we go again! Only one month into the New Year and already the media have given us the useless information on the mega-rich royals! What she wears, where she has been and a nice free night at the cinema under the guise of a royal premier, giving War Horse royal approval, whatever that means these days.

In these hard times, I’m sure the average citizen does not have to be told about the priceless gifts and jewellery that are given to them on their travels. On other pages we are told about child poverty in our own land. It’s about time this archaic clan, who have existed for centuries, were confined to the pages of history where they belong.

From the cradle to the grave, their lifestyle will never be like us normal mortals. Why hand out the MBE or OBE or CBE? BE stands for British Empire, which died out years ago! At least change the medals to MBP, BP standing for British People!

Out of all the so-called royal families still in existence, ours are the only ones who jet all over the world and keep themselves in the limelight all the time.

H G Smith Wroughton

Miles off track

In your comment column of January 18, you wrote: “including one man who travelled from Athlone near Dublin”.

The centre of Swindon is about 77 miles from central London. The centre of Athlone is about 78 miles from central Dublin. Would you describe Swindon as “near London”?

Cyril Mannion Wanborough Swindon