SIR, I am surprised by how many council employees will be spending Christmas with the depressing thought that they may be made redundant in the new year. These cuts to services by Monmouthshire County Council were reported in the Beacon on Wednesday 5th November and were calculated to make savings of a few hundred thousand pounds. What is strange about this is that at the end of September, a council spokesperson had stated that the council had funds to build a £5 million swimming pool to replace the current pool, which will be destroyed needlessly in order to build a new school. There was no mention of service cuts or redundancies in connection with raising the £5million needed. If the current pool is losing money, it doesn't seem logical to build a larger pool to lose even more. A notable point too, is that the redundancies include leisure centre staff. (Name and address supplied)