Being a non-Swindonian who has lived here for several years due to my job, but who has also lived in cities elsewhere in the UK and regularly travels overseas, I think I have a realistic view of Swindon's chances of becoming a city.

My view is that the bid has more to do with the vanity of the council and our pair of alleged MPs than with any serious effort to actually become a city.

Face it people, the place is a toilet full of litter, covered in graffiti, totally lacking in amenities, with a terrible road system and a crumbling education service, to name but a few negatives. It is most noticeable every time I return from overseas trips on business, sometimes from really grim places, when I just get an empty feeling of disappointment as I approach the town and see what a grey, uninspiring place it is.

There's no civic pride here, and that's where the city bid fails before it even gets into justifying all the other shortcomings I mentioned.

I regularly travel to the US, a country with every imaginable social problem and deprivation beneath its wealthy veneer, but I've never seen anything as bad there, because whatever else they lack or whatever we might think of them, they at least have pride by the bucketload.

Rather than trying to find reasons why the Government didn't make Swindon a city, let's try looking at why they ever would!

What exactly has it to offer apart from a load of hi-tech industry and vast housing estates? After seven years here I haven't found anything, and before anyone replies saying I should leave if I don't like it, don't worry, I am, just as soon as I can arrange it!

So, lets not waste any more of everyone's hard-earned council tax on such vain absurdity, and spend it instead on fixing Swindon. Then maybe in 15 or 20 years it might stand some sort of chance.

N Rickards

Sparcells, Swindon