Last night I gave a sell out talk in a packed reading room at Swindon Central Library. Now that's not me showing off. I freely admit that I am not the world's best public speaker (at least this time I didn't drop my notes all over the floor). On a dreary, wet and windy Guy Fawkes evening people turned out to listen to a not-terribly-good speaker. Why? Because I was talking about something both they and I feel passionately about - the future of Lydiard House and Park. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, only one of the 52 local Councillors I invited was in the audience, but I'm hoping he left with a few ideas, because that's what my talk was about, in part. The Council needs to reduce the £450,000 subsidy it pays to keep the House and Park running and has called in an independent property advisor Bilfinger GVA to identify joint venture partners to work with them. In effect this means leasing out the property. There are two public engagement days schedul...