I CAN think of four reasons why the Swan Theatre should be saved.

First, the arts are of enormous benefit to our national and local economies, earning cash from outside, creating jobs and stimulating spending in the area.

We only have to look up the road at Birmingham to see how the arts have been at the forefront of urban regeneration.

Second, the theatre provides a valuable educational resource. My son was one of many Worcester schoolchildren who were able to walk to see the poet Roger McGough, without the need for expensive and time-consuming coach trips. What price the enrichment of these young people's lives?

Third, a local theatre incorporating both professional and amateur work and managed locally is able to voice the character and concerns of the City and its people, as shown in the recent millennium plays.

Finally, any city worth the name should have a theatre where its citizens can enrich their lives, open their imaginations and be entertained, just as it should have sports facilities for physical exercise.

Worcester's concert hall was demolished in the 1960s and Huntingdon Hall, small though it is, is left to fly the flag for music, without much help from the council, I suspect. Are our councillors trying to turn this city into a cultural desert? This must not happen.

ANDREW WATTS,

St John's, Worcester.