Category: Uncategorized

There weren’t many buildings in the part of Swindon’s front garden that is to be developed: just four. West Leaze cottages were demolished last December, Westlecott Farm was demolished this February. Now South Leaze Farm Cottages look like they are heading the same way. That will just leave South Leaze Farm. It seems wasteful that in their plans, the for 4,500 new houses, the developers cannot find a space for just four old ones. Is there not something to gain by having a little charm and character in an otherwise uniform modern development? West Leaze cottages have made way for nothing more than a road junction, which could easily have been moved 20′ south to allow them to remain. It would seem that the Wichelstowe planners are thoroughly unimaginative.

After a long absence — and very little presence even then — the red nest’s Action Team (sic) have made a reappearance, though their ‘action’ amounts to no more than dropping a leaflet through my letterbox. They have a strange concept of ‘working hard’. They have, apparently, been

working together to keep the Westcott Place Post Office open.

They’ve clearly not been working very well, as their colleague Ms Snelgrove has consistently voted in favour of post offices being closed. One of their other claims is rather odd too.

Stop the diversion of town traffic onto Central’s residential roads.

Being a rather narrow ward reaching into the town centre, do they really expect the main roads in Central not to carry town centre traffic? There are very few side streets offer any diversion into the town centre either, so this just reads like scaremongering. Perhaps they’re thinking of the impact of the proposed canal, which would lead to greater traffic in Broadgreen, but less at the Westcott end of the ward. Is it too much to expect that a ward candidate might one day campaign as if there is more to Central than Broadgreen?

As for their other claims of action, they’re indisinguishable from claims made by the other parties.

Drivers delivering to the Wichelstowe development works may be somewhat confused when approaching from junction 16 of the M4. The last stage of their journey is along a road clearly marked as ‘Unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles’. Perhaps the houses with which Swindon’s Front Garden is to be filled will just be rather lightly constructed….

Now both the main parties are at it. Just a few days after the red nest brought in yet another minister to meet and greet in the town, now the blue nest have brought in a shadow minister, again to meet and greet, in Parks ward where most of the ministerial visitors have spent most of their visits.

Perhaps I’m old fashioned but, when deciding which candidate to vote for in the council elections, I couldn’t care less what ministers and their shadows have to say. This is a local election, not a national one, and, for once, there are quite a few local issues to be debated, such as waste and recycling services, town centre regeneration, and the canal proposals.

It seems that the parties are so busy showing their parliamentary colleagues around Parks ward that so far they’ve had little time to enter the local debate on the doorstep in the rest of the borough. If parties concentrate campaigning effort on ‘key’ marginal wards and take the elctorate elsewhere for granted, they shouldn’t be surprised if the result is voter apathy.

The BBC Big Screen Swindon in Wharf Green has now been switched on, with workmen busily filling in the remaining gaps in the paving. This must now be one of the most inappropriately named places in Swindon, being named after a wharf that disappeared almost a hundred years ago, and now bereft of almost all greenery. As for the screen itself, the newly planted row of trees (to make up for some of those cut down last year) help obscure it from Canal Walk. Having now seen the screen working, I remain of the opinion that it will not live up to the hype. It’s a welcome addition to the town centre, but nothing stunning.

It’s not just the recent weather that has been unseasonal. The run-up to this year’s local elections has also been unusually quiet. But at least we have the list of candidates now (and despite having ‘2004’ in the link it is for this year). It looks a little more local than usual, with three of the Central ward candidates living in the ward itself: Kevin Leakey, David Cox and Eric Bagwell. The other two are a little more remote: Hannah Pajak from Old Town and Junab Ali from Freshbrook. Apart from that all we have to judge the candidates on are a couple of manifestos, from the blue and red nests. The blue nest are long on what they have done, but short on what they will do in the future. The red nest accuse the blues of wasting money on a canal… only to suggest spending on investigating whether trams should be introduced into Swindon. Now that’s far more likely to cause ‘traffic chaos’ than a canal down one road ever will.

It seems odd to me that Thamesdown Transport’s latest fares rise has caused more fuss than their planned route changes, especially as it earlier plans for these route changes ran into so much political opposition. Leading the fuss, step forward Mr Montaut, continuing his approach of not allowing a lack of knowledge on an issue get in the way of him expressing an opinion.

This is deplorable. What the company needs to do is start focusing more on customers and getting people on their buses and less on their own income. The traditional return fare is offered all over the country, but now it is being axed in Swindon. I have the feeling that if Thamesdown continues to act in this fashion pressure groups are going to start popping up for the buses like they have on trains and planes. The thing is, though, if the company acted more responsibly it would not have to come to this.

Absense of return bus fares is actually not that uncommon. As an example Nottingham City Transport which, like Thamesdown Transport is council owned and also like Thamesdown Transport has a no-change-given exact fare only policy, does not offer return fares. And whilst nobody would disagree that Thamesdown Transport should try to get more passengers on its buses, if it ignores its income we, the council taxpayers of Swindon, will end up the owners of a loss-making company. Perhaps Mr Montaut has forgotten his earlier concerns about the level of subsidy paid to the bus company.

The fares increases proposed range from zero (for a single zone single) through 5% for a single zone return journey and 7% for a two zone single, to 11% for a two zone return journey. Day tickets and season tickets are increasing by between 7% and 12%. Fares increases that are so high that passenger numbers by so much that the bus company ends up worse off are not clever. But with motorists costs rising steeply too, I’d describe these fares increases as predictable, rather than deplorable.

I see that Mr Cartwright from the Wilts and Berks Canal Trust is, once again, demonstrating his contempt for the people of Swindon, brushing aside any concerns that are expressed. In response to an Adver survey showing over 63% of a sample of 1000 people were against the proposals to reintroduce a canal to central Swindon, Mr Cartwright takes the ‘glass one third full’ approach.

It still means that a third of people support it. A lot of people’s response is probably because there has been a lot of negativity in the newspapers about the canal. Then when you ask people a yes or no question like this they immediately think of all the negative aspects – it’ll cause traffic problems, it’ll cost me lots of money. I think we need to get across to people that the canal will not cost them anything and that the traffic problems in the centre have to be solved with or without the canal.

His “it won’t cost a thing” argument is getting monotonous now. It may not appear in the council tax, but ultimately, whether it be by companies re-developing central Swindon passing a levy onto the people, or central government taxation, we will end up paying the £52M that the canal will cost. Let’s also not forget that the £52M price tag does not include the costs of buying land nor of works to relieve traffic congestion resulting from the canal.

Speaking of which, Mr Cartwright’s comments about traffic congestion suggest that he has not read the report that his own organisation and Swindon Borough Council commissioned.

To conclude; this initial modelling work indicates that closing Westcott Place and Faringdon Road to general traffic would have some negative traffic impacts, including increases in traffic delay, increased journey lengths (due to detours), and possibly the loss of some on-street parking. However, the modelling shows that other areas of the network will experience reductions in traffic/congestion, and hence, overall the network would not reach capacity and therefore could accommodate the closure of Westcott Place and Faringdon Road. However, other potential future year changes may also add to congestion in the Borough, which may result in unacceptable delays.

That’s not the benign outcome that Mr Cartwright is trying to portray, but a statement that building a canal will bring forward the time when Swindon’s streets reach gridlock.

If Mr Cartwright wishes to gain the support of the people of Swindon for his plans, he needs to address their concerns, not dismiss them.

It seems that Mr Wills is having difficulty with his memory. His local red nest colleagues seem to have similar similar problems too. They may be keen to blame the local council or the post office management for the impending closure of local post offices, but let us not forget a couple of facts.

• Mr Wills voted in favour of the government’s programme of post office closures;
• Ms Snelgrove voted in favour of the government’s programme of post office closures.

According to Mr Wills,

Instead of trying to help the people of Swindon the council is just trying to make a party political point

Perhaps he should have thought of helping the people of Swindon before casting his own vote last January and before opening his mouth now just to make a party political point himself.

Always ones to make a crisis out of a drama, the Adver have excelled themselves, allowing one woman’s imagination to turn a minor accident (one wheel of a bus going off the road) into a near tragedy.

Melody Lyall, the landlady at the Red Lion Pub, in Castle Eaton, said it was a very near miss. “The only thing that kept that bus upright was a small wall that it wedged itself against, otherwise it would have tipped over into a flooded field. Because both the front doors were on that side things could have turned very bad very quickly. It was quite dramatic. I was in my conservatory drinking my morning coffee and I witnessed the whole thing. The field on the other side is flooded at the moment – it is under several feet of water. You can imagine the outcome if it had toppled over…. I would have said they were pretty lucky as it would have been tough to get them all out of that bus without it going over on its side.”

Wow! Children safely alight from a bus with one wheel in a ditch. Whatever next? I dropped a slice of bread on the floor recently. Perhaps I should ask the Adver round to see how close I came to starvation in the time it took me to cut another slice….