Category: Uncategorized

Walking along the old railway line from Mannington to Old Town today, I see that preparatory work for the front garden development has now almost reached South Leaze, so the whole length of the site is now being worked on. Most noticeable was the absence of Blackhorse Bridge, demolished early last month. Elsewhere, the main activities seem to be building temporary roads and putting in drainage. We wouldn’t want the occupants of the new houses to get wet feet now, would we?

Blackhorse Bridge in May and… the site of Blackhorse Bridge in July.

Reading about Swindon Borough Council’s plans to extinguish smoking in enclosed public places by doing 500 inspections on pubs, clubs and the like in the first month of the ban, one thing struck me as wrong, even if one is in favour of the ban. The amount of signage required is just way over the top (with a fine of upto £1000 for getting it wrong).

The main entrance to every workplace in England [has] to display A5 signs including the no-smoking logo and the words “it is against the law to smoke in these premises.” Then further no smoking symbols must be displayed in all company cars and staff entrances.

Unless they’ve been living in another country for the last few months, any staff would know there was a ban being introduced without the need for signs at every entrance. It must be a very profitable time for the sign manufacturers.

So I exaggerate a little: Swindon is neither sunny (as I write, ’tis raining outside) nor by the sea; but my exaggeration is only slightly more than that of Anna Mansell of The Adver.

SWINDON may be a somewhat land-locked town, but residents will soon be able to bask on a beautiful beach…. A sweeping bend will be created on the river at Rivermead, and the beach will be installed giving visitors a place to sit and enjoy the scene and animal life sights.

I don’t think ‘basking’ is quite what the Swindon Water for Wildlife River Ray restoration project has in mind, as becomes clear later in the article.

This big sweeping bend will provide a shallow, graded gravel beach which will provide a community focus in the area where people can come and enjoy the river, sit and contemplate, or dip their dogs.

No hint of basking there. More a case of taking cover as a flotilla of soggy dogs shake themselves dry.

This morning I went to the Swindon Gateway Partnership’s display of their new plans for the area to the east of Coate Water. They are a great improvement on the previous plans. That does not make them good. To quote the developers’ consultants.

Sarah Smith, associate director of DPDS, said: “Essentially what’s changed is we have taken on board the local planning inspector’s comments about the views into and out of Coate Water Country Park. Therefore we have looked at moving the university site further south to remove some of the higher buildings out of these views. We have increased the buffer zone to the special site of scientific interest by about 40 per cent.

That’s all very well and is an improvement on their earlier plans. However, in place of the university at the northern end of the site there will now be a residential area… right up close to the northern arm of Coate Water. That’s the part of Coate Water that has the most visitors. There’s no buffer zone there. And at upto 5 storeys tall (according to Ms Smith this morning), even with a wider buffer zone, the university buildings are not going to be hidden out-of-sight. The possibility of imposing lower limits on those university buildings nearest Coate Water was considered but discounted by the developers (or in Ms Smith’s words “It’s in the plans’ environmental statement.”).

The overall impression from the display was of some fairly uncaring developers (they can afford to be — Swindon Borough Council is on their side). Ms Smith’s colleague was like a record stuck in a groove, repeating “it complies with national standards” in response to every concern raised (noise from adjoining main roads; provision of utilities; density of housing; impact on road congestion…). I’m sure that is true, but on its own it does not win many friends.

A startling new discovery from Swindon Arts Centre Café: a courgette is not the best tool for stopping a water leak. I’m so glad I know that now. My life will never be the same again.

It looks like we are in for an old-fashioned boundary dispute between Swindon and Wiltshire councils. Expect lots of petty politics, with each side saying what a disaster it would be if the other council’s proposition came to pass. In response to Wiltshire’s bid for unitary status, Swindon proposes an expansion of its territory into North Wiltshire, to accommodate the government’s proposed growth plans for the town. There has already been much petty squabbling between county and district councils with associated waste of council-tax-payers’ money (note in particular the opposing conclusions drawn from one MORI survey). We can expect much more.

There is one thing that puzzles me in Councillor Bluh’s comments though.

There are no certain plans to expand into any specific areas at this stage, but obviously it would not be possible to expand to the east because of the boundary with Oxfordshire.

Why is Oxfordshire being treated with such deference? It’s not that long ago (1974) that the Vale of White Horse was part of Berkshire (which itself disappeared as a council in 1998 when its districts gained unitary status), so the boundary can hardly be described as sacrosanct.

Update: Well that was a big fuss about nothing. The proposal got a unanimous ‘no’ at Monday’s council meeting. That’s a rather quick about-turn from Mr Bluh.

I find the response from a local bed-and-breakfast hotel to a planning application for a new Jurys Inn in central Swindon a little strange.

Mark Gregson, owner of the Royston Hotel in Victoria Road, said the bigger chains could afford to squeeze local businesses out of the area. He said: “When the Travelodge opened for business I think we reached the limit of beds to customers, and if another comes along I think it will have a negative impact. The big companies have an advantage because they can afford to cut their prices by half for six months. They can run at a loss due to their financial backing and that’s something we just can’t do.”

Well… yes… that’s all true. But Jurys Inn is not really in the same market as The Royston Hotel, in which I stayed for almost a month when I first came to Swindon. Even at half-price, a room in a Jurys Inn would still be more expensive than the equivalent in The Royston. This is a little like M&S complaining of competition from Woollies — there’s a little overlap in what they offer, but not much.

Nice to see that our recently elected councillor has a good grasp of the matter.

Central ward councillor Derique Montaut said the problem was similar to the dominance of big supermarkets. “While we recognise the positive side of this for Swindon, attention has to be given to the local traders who could be forced out of existence.”

No Derique, not at the prices Jurys Inn charge. And whilst there has been a recent local casualty to increased hotel competition, that one was part of a national chain.

Oh, one other thing. The Royston Hotel does a very nice full english breakfast. I strongly recommend it.

Having once lived, for four years, in a house facing a six lane dual carriageway trunk road, and for most of my childhood having lived very close to a main railway line, I’ve always been of the opinion that, if you chose to live by a main traffic route, you should accept that it’s going to be noisy. Not so the parishioners of Stratton St Margaret who, after six years of campaigning by their local MP (like most of the parish councillors, a red nestling), have had £160,000-worth of ‘acoustic barrier’ (tall wooden fence to you) constructed alongside the A419 Stratton Bypass, with another £240,000-worth to come. A resident quoted in the newspaper sums up my views.

Student Scott Jefferies, who lives behind the new fence in Winton Road said: “I don’t really think the fence has made much difference. You can still hear the road from outside but you can’t really hear it indoors at all. And to be honest you just get used to it. I have lived with it so long I hardly notice it anymore.”

If the picture of the MP grinning in front of the fence is typical, that’s hardly surprising: a dense growth of trees is clearly visible behind.

One of the best places to learn about British culture is… a well known fast food retailer. Yes, according to their local franchisee, a McJob is a good way to get an introduction to the finer aspects of British traditions.

Paul Booth, franchise owner of five Swindon restaurants, said: “The ‘McJob’ definition is out of date, out of touch with reality and most importantly insulting to the hard-working, committed and talented people who serve the public every day.”

More than 3,500 people are employed in restaurants in Swindon, and for some of them the job was their first point of contact with British culture.

So the next time you see someone grossly overweight waddling out from McDonalds, remember that they’ve just been providing some migrant workers with a good cultural education.

According to some, the new Wiltshire flag (which will be flying from County Hall from tomorrow) is

a bizarre mix of psychedelic green with a big bird in the middle

‘Green with a big bird in the middle’…. Nowt wrong with that in my opinion.