WHAT a great pity that Gerald Harris (You Say, April 19) cannot let the new management of the Swan Theatre get on with the job that they are good at without taking an embittered swipe at those keen on ensuring that OUR theatre becomes a success.

The fact is that the Swan has a much brighter future now that a team that has a proven track record and clearly knows what it is doing is running it.

In his diatribe he refers to the closure of the Swan as "an act of cultural and economic vandalism".

He is wrong on three counts.

He doesn't seem to accept that the theatre is continuing under new management. It is his running of it that has come to a close.

Secondly, it can hardly be called cultural vandalism to cease that part of an operation that very few people were willing to support and that was a financial disaster under his chairmanship.

Action should have been taken several years ago to prevent the inevitable slide to virtual insolvency that he should have guarded against. It was a cavalier attitude that allowed the situation to go on assuming that the ratepayer would cough up whatever was required.

As for the economic vandalism, I am at a loss to figure out how he believes that the tourist economy has suffered a serious blow.

Surely even he can see that the successful record of the new management means that many more people are likely to enjoy our theatre than before. The obvious outcome of that scenario means that the local economy will be improved.

Mr Harris calls it an irresponsible act with "no respect for the people of Worcester". He should realise that the people of Worcester showed exactly what they thought of his operation by not supporting much of the professional programme that he put out.

Proof of this can be found in the Mckinnon Report that showed that audiences for the previous 13 plays were painfully inadequate.

Only two plays produced audiences more than 50 per cent, one play was attended by around 25 per cent and the rest could only muster audiences in the 30-40 per cent region. Even worse - some audiences were as low as 20-30 people strong and some performances were cancelled due to lack of interest.

The good people of Worcester were, in fact, subsidising Mr Harris's empty seats. So it is he who should have had more respect for the people of Worcester by taking better control and reining in the under-performing part of the operation.

With regard to the council funding of his board, Mr Harris gives a rather distorted slant on the facts. He states that the council "miraculously" found the money that had been withdrawn from him.

In reality, the £54,000 grant was always on the table for whoever ran the operation.

A £40,000 grant was added as a one-off payment to facilitate the changeover, new ticketing facilities and so on.

That grant is considerably less than the additional £110,000 that Mr Harris needed just to remain solvent.

So it is Mr Harris who should accept responsibility for the Swan debacle.

Perhaps he should keep his sour grapes and let us all move on and enjoy our theatre which, with his background, I trust he will continue to support. I wonder!

COUNCILLOR DAVID CLARK,

Worcester.