Packing ’em in at Coate

Packing houses in, that is. With even the ever-optimistic Mr Bluh admitting that residential development around Swindon is slowing, you might think that the pressure to concrete over the area around Coate Water might have eased. Not so. The Swindon Gateway Partnership (Persimmon and Redrow) is back with revised plans for 1,550 little boxes houses and a mystery university. It’s good to read that the council don’t intend to let the developers get their way until there’s evidence that the prospect of a university occupying the site is reality rather than fantasy. With public funding of universities stagnating (apart from what looks like a pre-election spending binge during the current financial year) that’s shouldn’t be too soon.