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I don’t wish to appear churlish about Swindon Borough Council achieving a low council tax increase for the coming year but… if they can achieve an increase of just 1.8% following a year when the council’s other revenues (such as planning application fees) have collapsed, just why haven’t they achieved it before? Or perhaps it would be more pertinent to ask why they haven’t felt it appropriate to achieve such a small increase before. In principle, it should have been possible for them to achieve this level of increase in previous years putting far less strain on service provision, as the council’s finances were in a better state.

To go for broke — possibly literally — this year looks like little more than reckless pre general election posturing rather than carefully thought out financial planning.

Work has started to reinstate the railings around Faringdon Road Park. Although they will be less substantial than the originals — the brick piers are not stable enough to hold full-height railings — they’ll lift the park’s appearance. It remain’s Swindon’s most barren of parks, bereft of the well-kept flower beds to be found in the parks around Old Town.

Some of the coping stones being removed are stamped with the manufacturer’s mark from 1897. They seem to have been carefully removed and will make a reappearance atop the rebuilt heightened piers.

It’s difficult to understand how the management at the Great Western Hospital managed to get their plans for providing a staff bus service so wrong. Just three weeks ago, they were effusive about the likely level of usage.

The service will be up and running by January 4 and after speaking to staff about the plans, many have said it is a service they will be glad to use… staff would find it more convenient as many have to pass Honda to get here anyway.

Now the £30,000 scheme that was intended to free-up 200 parking spaces has been shelved for lack of interest. Now I’m sure that the hospital management know where their staff live, but if most of their staff pass the Honda site on the way to work that suggests that either the hospital is staffed almost exclusively by residents of Highworth or that staff from around Swindon like to take a tour of Stratton on the way to work.

For much of the twentieth century, many large employers ran staff buses. Surely it’s not that difficult to get right?

The developers of Wichelstowe would like prospective house buyers to believe the area doesn’t have a drainage problem. I’m not convinced….

The recent announcement by Thamesdown Transport (which was regurgitated almost verbatim by Swindonweb) seems to have missed the wider uses for on-bus announcements of the next stop. One of the passengers that they have used in the press release, Mr Trevennen, is rather more aware.

It’s not just the visually impaired who benefit but passengers who are new to the town or are visiting.

The system has been introduced on what the company calls ‘six key routes’: the 1 & 1A to West Swindon, 2 to Covingham, 13 & 14 to Eldene and Haydon Wick and 17 between Penhill and Park North. Except for the short hop between the railway station and the Outlet Centre these are probably not services used by many visitors to Swindon. Route 16 to the hospital might be a better choice, or some of the rural routes, such as the 47 to Lambourn with onward connection to Newbury, or the 48 & 48A to Marlborough. Or to benefit those new to the town, why not service 18 to Priory Vale or 11 to Wichelstowe?

Perhaps Thamesdown Transport should listen more to its passengers.

With all the fuss and angst over Swindon Borough Council’s budget plans for next financial year, another item on this Wednesday’s council cabinet meeting agenda has been overlooked.

The council executive’s proposals for replacing the New Swindon Company is damning with its mild praise. First, the mild praise.

Since the company’s formation TNSC has helped to stimulate regeneration and investment in Swindon’s central area. TNSC has put together exciting development packages that have stimulated considerable interest in Swindon’s regeneration plans. The company’s most notable success has been in attracting Muse as the developer for the Union Square scheme.

Claiming success before anything has conrete has happened is premature, to say the least. Even if this could be claimed as a success, ‘only’ is a more accurate term than ‘most notable’. One odd thing is that the proposals say funding — if only for the coming year — is unchanged.

Recognising the current economic challenges and the importance of an effective response, SBC aims to continue with its existing level of funding of £250k per annum plus the financing of the transferred economic development team and related project budgets.

Yet the budget proposals show a reduction of £147k. With contradictions like that, it’s no wonder that the council’s finances are in a bad way.

The reasons given for replacing the company read as a thinly-veiled catalogue of failure.

An opportunity to engage with private investors in a way not seen before

So the New Swindon Company failed in attracting private investors….

Deployment of limited resources for maximum impact and for best value

And wasted our money….

The requirement for town centre regeneration to link in a more integrated way with plans for the rest of the Borough to ensure Swindon’s existing communities benefit from regeneration and growth

And ignored the communities it was meant to benefit. And the replacement, borough-wide company, how will that engage with the community? Apparently, not all. The council’s vision for the new company is for it to be the poodle of the council, seemingly with no direct involvement with the community at all.

The recommendation in Swindon Borough Council’s budget proposals for next financial year to turn some street lights off at night has grabbed a few headlines. As I’ve mentioned before, turning off street lights is nothing new; it’s how things used to be. What is new is the amount it costs to turn the lights off. From the council’s figures, simply switching off — permanently — 481 street lights in rural areas is relatively cheap: a one-off cost of £5000 to save £11,000 per year. But putting a timer on street lights in residential areas to turn them off in the middle of the night will cost almost £½M — £450k to be more precise — and will take six years for the savings to recover that cost.

With the council spending almost £½M on turning out the lights and almost another £½M on borough-wide wireless internet, one has to wonder just how much bigger than £12M the hole in the council’s budget would have to be before its cabinet members practice the fiscal rigour that some of them are so fond of preaching to others.

Now I appreciate that both the planning and bridge building processes can be slow and lengthy, especially judging by how long it has taken for Blackhorse Bridge to be reconstructed. Housing development at the moment is even slower. House building on Swindon’s front garden has slowed so much recently — with little likelihood of it picking-up in the immediate future — that the developers are accepting a financial prop from the state. In those circumstances, the recent outline planning application by Arup to build a bridge over the railway line at Southleaze seems a little premature.

Outline application for the construction of a footbridge over the railway line to facilitate pedestrian access between Wichelstowe and housing/ employment areas to the west of Swindon.

The nearest employment areas in West Swindon are two miles from the westernmost extremity of East Wichel. I’m fully in favour of encouraging a healthy commute, but I suspect it will be many years before this bridge earns its keep. In the intervening period, all it’s likely to do is open up Southleaze to further vandalism.

Since the demise of Central Outlook over a year ago, central Swindon’s been without a source of hyperlocal news. It may not have been the best quality journalism, but it was a space where truly local issues affecting the Victorian terraced areas of central Swindon were aired. So when this afternoon a new magazine titled “it’s all about central swindon” plopped through my letterbox, I was mildly interested. But not for long.

I suppose I should have been more sceptical given that it arrived buried amongst a load of junk leaflets. The fact that the most prominent place name on the front cover was ‘Highworth’ wasn’t promising either. The editorial told me that there are already editions for east and west Swindon. It also told me that the editorial team are based in Wootton Bassett. That’s even less local than the local newspaper. As for the remainder, there’s a few local (i.e. Swindon-related) reports, adverts, syndicated articles, adverts, advertorials, and adverts.

I almost gave the benefit of the doubt, wondering if the local content might increase significantly in later editions. Then I looked at the online editions for east and west Swindon on their website, apparently in their twelfth and sixth editions respectively. Apart from a piece by Covingham Parish Council in the east Swindon edition, they’re almost indistinguishable. Though the order of the articles is different in each, with very few exceptions the content is the same; and unrelated to the specific circulation area.

It’s not all about central Swindon, it’s all about somewhere else.

With the recent departure of Mr James it now seems to have fallen to our local councillors to provide updates on the actions (or more generally lack thereof) of the New Swindon Company. Thus it is that an update ostensibly written by Mr Young has appeared in the ‘talk back’ section of their website previously occupied by Mr James’ thoughts. I say ostensibly, because the piece is hard to distinguish from many others produced by the New Swindon Company spin machine.

As you know, we’ve been focusing a lot lately on improving the town centre’s public realm facilities in order to provide a better environment for our proposed new developments.

I thought they’d been doing it because the government had chucked some taxpayers’ money in their direction.

Plans are also underway for public realm improvement works on Regent Street…. We are hoping to be onsite early next year.

Early next year? That’s not very precise for a construction project that, if taken at face value, could be less than two months away from starting. Perhaps by ‘early’ he means ‘first half of’.

In general, plans for Union Square are moving in a very positive direction.

R.I.P. plain English. I’d rather the plans were stationary but the work progressing.

A detailed planning application for phase one of the development — which will comprise of 45 sheltered dwelling units, a new Primary Health Care Trust facility and a multi-storey car park

For what is meant to be a prime office area that all sounds very public sector to me.

is due to be submitted very shortly. If all goes according to plan, we look forward to starting on site in summer 2010.

Aah, back to those imprecise deadlines. An old adage is never believe a project plan based on the seasons of the year.

An outline planning application for the rest of the development is due early in 2010 — and we hope to be ready to begin on site with phase two of the scheme in the latter part of 2011.

That’s just five years after most of the area was demolished, and still nothing has been done to make use of the areas surrounded by hoardings.

Plans are also nearing completion for the former Swindon College site development. We are hoping to see a planning application submitted in the near future

I’ve heard that one before… several times over at least two years. I’m no more inclined to believe it now than I was last time.

In the more immediate future, work is due to begin on site early in January 2010 for the new BHS development.

Wow! A deadline precise to within a month! So there’s one development we can be confident will happen. Just one. There’s no mention of the replacement for the collapsed Regent Place development. “Transforming Swindon’s retail centre” appears to have been consigned to the already overflowing dustbin of failed regeneration masterplans.