THE letter in last week's Advertiser got it right. Leisure is something to be left to the professionals.

It should be no surprise the AIR festival was a financial failure. Anyone can give away tickets for nothing.

The Leisure Services Department have not proved themselves to be the brightest or the best. There is now little to do in the town centre except shop, gamble and drink.

We probably would already have a new multiplex cinema in the Kingfisher Centre similar to the excellent Cineworld at Touchwood in Solihull if the council had not been persuaded to promote an ill-advised and much-delayed scheme to build one next to the crematorium.

The council is under a legal obligation to preserve buildings of architectural and historic importance yet they have been advised to demolish the back of the 'listed' Palace Theatre and build an extension which is based on the unloved and unlovely style of the 1950s post-war redevelopments that have hugely disfigured so many town and city centres.

Councillors should get better advisers and not allow themselves to be persuaded to agree to illogical schemes by egotistical officers. It is now time to reconsider the town's leisure plans before it is too late.

JB West

Abbotswood Close

Winyates Green