Responding to AS Mason's complaint that Wiltshire Tourism has only included one sentence about Trowbridge in its 2004 tourist brochure, and did not include the town at all in 2003, is a symptom.

The attempted relocation of the record office to Chippenham is another symptom. The disease is the systematic undermining of Trowbridge's status as the county town by the county council.

What other county town in the country does not have its own purpose-built library? A new purpose-built library was promised in the early 1950s half a century later the town is still waiting, whilst smaller Wiltshire towns have brand new libraries provided for them.

What other county towns have had the record office relocated elsewhere? Just two, and in one of those the county town was no longer in its county!

Trowbridge is a major shopping centre, has some of the best Georgian buildings in the county and is well served by public transport.

The minimal coverage by Wiltshire Tourism can only be explained as covert prejudice against Trowbridge.

DM Colcomb

Roundway Park

Devizes

FOLLOWING AS Mason's letter, I have read the Welcome To Wiltshire brochure closely. Some nine Trowbridge hotel and bed and breakfast establishments were persuaded to advertise in the brochure, assuming the county town would be a key part of it. They were wrong. There would seem to be a good case for them to demand their money back! There is good coverage of Swindon who did not pay anything towards the cost of the brochure!

Wiltshire Tourism seems to have forgotten just who is paying for the brochure. Major companies do not spend their shareholders' money advertising a competitor so why has Wiltshire tax payers' money been spent in this way? The Swindon brochure didn't mention any Wiltshire towns! But then the county council is careless with our money as far as Swindon is concerned as the record office fiasco has shown.

GJW BRIDGES

Trowbridge