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Where is street lights money coming from?

Re the proposed new street lighting.

How can spending over £9.5m save money? It will take many years to recoup this alone and where is this huge amount of money coming from when the council keep telling us what things they can’t afford unless they raise the taxes from us?

We have had many lights around Eldene alone that had been needing replacing recently, so why don’t they just put the new type lamps in them as they are needed.

Recently whole blocks of lights have failed around Dorcan that would have been a good start to replace.

I don’t understand how the council can keep talking about spending millions of pounds on this and road alterations, that often go wrong, like this is no bottom to where to find the money.

Mrs J Lawrence, Mundy Avenue, Swindon

Memory of a long lost Swindon jewel

When I drive into town along Fleming Way it makes me rather sad going past The Range and Halfords.

What was there? Garrards makers of the best record players in the world at the time.

In 1919 my grandfather, an American by birth, worked for Garrards the crown jewellers. He and two directors came to Swindon to open on that site the Garrards Eng & Mfg Co ltd. He worked there until he retired, my father was an apprentice in Garrards and worked there all his working life apart from during the war when he was at Rotol in Cheltenham.

When I was 16 I became an apprentice in the firm and was there until two years before it closed.

Apart from those two years a member of my family worked there from 1919 till it closed.

Alan Shrive, By email

Disappointed in Lords’ salary increase

Am I alone in feeling disappointment, with few exceptions regarding our so called elected political masters. From national level to local councillors.

It is a well known fact that the basic human instinct is survival and self interest. But that could mean nursing a sick child or a family pet.

Perhaps working in a charity shop without any financial gain.Even buying a poppy on Remembrance Day. As a tribute to the battle of the Somme.Where all gave some, some gave all.

Alas the present day political classes have once again been exposed in the national press for high personal expenses in Parliament, Not to mention the inflation busting rise in the House of Lords salaries. All at taxpayers expense.

They should all pause for thought on the fact that Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem on a donkey in common attire.That you cannot take your wealth with you as the day of reckoning inevitably comes to us all.

Bill Williams, Merlin Way, Covingham