I AM sure that many residents who suffer from the shortage of a multi-storey car park in Cirencester – “in case we become another Swindon” – will be surprised to hear that Cotswold District Council proposed to demolish a hospital building built by voluntary subscriptions as a memorial to the men who were killed in the First World War to provide 20-odd places at ground level.
This, at a time when land, already publicly owned in the very heart of the town, is used by a comparatively small number of people once or twice a week to play bowls – an occupation which could very easily be transferred to the Abbey Grounds.
This would enable a multi-storey car park to be built in a developing area adjoining the brewery car park, and therefore not imposing upon the apparently perpetual embargo on the historic remains buried under other car parks.
It is revealing that it is quite acceptable to demolish a monument to the memory of something which happened three generations ago but to sterilise, apparently in perpetuity, land to commemorate something which occurred over 20 centuries ago.
TJ LEES
Kemble
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