Fred Manson's offer of advice is equivalent to the local pub football team manager trying to advise Alex Ferguson!

After suffering the impact of the closure of Brunel's works in the mid-80s, Swindon has successfully regenerated itself from a single-industry railway town to the point where it is now one of the most successful towns in the UK, attracting Nobel Prize winning companies.

The evidence that we just might have got it right lies in the fact that, since the Central Area Study was published on October 12, the University of Bath has confirmed its intention to locate at North Star, the Regional Development Agency has signalled its intention to back this development as one of its flagship projects and a series of developers have opened planning negotiations for other town centre sites.

At a public meeting in the town on November 4, the plan received universal acclaim and people present decided to start a Civic Society to assist the council in bringing the plans to a reality.

Your critic also scoffs at the prospect of Swindon becoming a tourist attraction. So how can he explain that hotel rooms are fully booked on most nights of the week?

Does he know that the new museum Steam, which opened its doors to railway enthusiasts in July, has been a huge hit with visitors at home and abroad?

Does he know that the Designer Outlet Village in the former railway works has just won the South West region prize for Visitor Attraction of the Year 2000?

He suggests that Swindon becomes a centre for dance. He is clearly unaware that it already is. Swindon Dance has national dance agency status.

People want to live in Swindon. In recent years it has benefited from one of the largest population growths in the country. That is because the town has been extraordinarily successful at attracting industries and jobs.

Southwark would die for the rate of gross domestic product that Swindon has (the highest outside London in the UK), for our unemployment rate and for our range of leading edge industries. The town has more than 40 major multi-national headquarters and has seen £1 billion of inward investment in the past five years.

Southwark would also die for Swindon's innovative award-winning buildings, our communications, our landscape setting and our social harmony.

Swindon is something of a well-kept secret. Your critic suggests a marketing campaign and that is a catalyst we recommend in the report, not as a piece of hot air, but as a means of announcing to the world the real strengths that the town possesses and the changes that are taking place. A strong marketing campaign will not support a weak product.

In the end it is up to the people of Swindon to say whether they think this proposal has the correct ingredients. So far the indications are that they will give it their full support.

PETER ELLERSHAW

Director of Environmental Services,

Swindon Borough Council

& WENDY SHILLAM

Partner,

Shillam & Smith