THE PONTYPOOL Settlement Users Committee would like to express their thanks for the wonderful turnout at our protest meeting at Trosnant House on August 19.

We certainly hope that Torfaen council will have taken note of the strength of our concerns, and that they will not consider further cuts in the use of The Settlement.

Well-advertised as a venue, it could draw in many interest groups and functions and be a real money-spinner.

We reiterate that The Settlement was boasted about as a valuable and proud feather in the cap of TCBC and we need it to continue for the wide-ranging interests of the community of mid to north Torfaen, as we are fast becoming the backward end of the county.

The argument for ripping out and disposing the items in the upstairs rooms of the Settlement has hardly been convincing. Please TCBC, make your cutbacks elsewhere next year, don’t spend all the grant money because you’re offered it, don’t spend your annual budget for the sake of it.

Learn to recycle and make do, as we all have to.

This will definitely be an ongoing story. We will be handing our petition to TCBC and the Welsh Office, please everyone, sign it if you can.

C M Richards, Cwmbran (on behalf of the Pontypool Settlement Users Committee)