komadori’s green corner

It seems that the University of Bath now wish to seal their departure from Swindon in rubble. The university has submitted a planning application ‘for the demolition of main campus building and all associated outbuildings/ sheds.’ Now, I wouldn’t go as far as the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, and describe it as ‘a wonderful campus building’, but as school buildings of the 1950s and 60s go it’s not that bad.

Note also how effective Ms Snelgrove’s attempt to protect Oakfield Campus has been. In the face of her own government’s legislation — which obliges owners to pay full business rates on empty commercial properties — it’s so far been a total failure.

With the economy in trouble and Swindon seemingly suffering particularly hard, it would be nice to think that our councillors are concentrating on steering the town through the economic storm. Perhaps considering options to get the regeneration of the town centre back on track, or looking for ways encourage some of what little investment is available to be made in Swindon.

Sadly, the reality is that our politicians are instead busying themselves with the pettier side of politics. From the blue nest there are rumours of infighting. From the red nest come shallow gestures aimed more at getting publicity than having an economic impact — ’tis odd that the red nest now feel they could live without big councillor allowances, when just three months ago they voted in favour of them, and still have their snouts in the trough at the local police authority.

With there being no local election this year, it’ll be another year yet before our local politicians get a necessary reminder that they’re elected to represent the people of Swindon, not just themselves.

I can’t help but feel that the local red nest is trying to distract my attention from something… the economy perhaps. The day after Mr Darling announced the worst government debt in over sixty years, along with cuts in services — or ‘efficiencies’ as he called it — and increases in tax, I received a letter from the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove. This letter told me what the government is splurging my money on, and expected me to be grateful for that. Increases in child tax credits, building Children’s Centres and building more government buildings may be good for construction workers with young children, but are not much use to anyone else.

Just a couple of days later, another leaflet from the local red nest dropped onto my doormat. This one talked about a budget where you pay more and get less in return, but they were referring to Swindon Borough Council’s budget, whereas I was thinking of Mr Darling’s.

In these tough times Labour is helping people and investing in services.

Ruining the economy and running up government debts of £1,185bn by 2013 is an odd way of helping.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is unstinting in her support for Mr Darling’s attempts to bankrupt the country.

This budget is delivering real help now to get people, especially young people, quickly back into work, and support businesses and homeowners facing problems.

Has it not occurred to Ms Snelgrove that the 10% increase in unemployment in Swindon last month indicates that there just aren’t the jobs out there? No amount of unemployment-statistics-massaging training will change that decrease in employment. Having blamed the banks for reckless borrowing, the government is now recklessly borrowing, and we’ll all be paying for that long after Ms Snelgrove is claiming her generous MP’s pension and resettlement allowance.

One thing has been missing from discussion of Radio 1’s Big Weekend coming to Swindon. That is how much it will cost Swindon Borough Council to support it. There’s been plenty of speculation, but nothing from the council to say how much they estimate it and the associated fringe events will cost.

Given that no other council has turned down the chance of hosting this event in the past, does the cost really matter? Well, yes. Even if you believe, as komadori does, that this is something that the council should support, some evidence for that belief would be comforting, especially considering the cost cutting that the Council felt was necessary for this year’s budget.

The Council claims there should be an economic benefit to Swindon, and quote the estimated benefit to Preston of holding the event in 2007 of about £1.4M. With the cost to some councils that have hosted the event in the past being as high as £0.5M, the economy in a mess and applications for tickets seemingly half what they were last year (tho’ still heavily oversubscribed), that benefit could easily disappear and become a debt.

As I’ve said before, Mr Montaut puts political posturing above representing those in Central ward where he is a councillor. Mr Greenhalgh has suggested putting up cameras at road junctions to catch those jumping red lights. Mr Montaut’s response? He claims speed cameras would be more effective.

The idea of red light cameras is an interesting one and I’m sure it would have an effect but the problem is that they will not be situated in the areas which are accident blackspots, which is where we need to be focusing our attention. The fixed speed cameras were put in positions which were accident blackspots in order to make those areas safer.

I’ll leave aside for the moment that it’s an odd belief that the only way to make an accident blackspot safe is to put up a speed camera. I’ll also let pass the wasteful idea that cameras should be placed where most accidents happen rather than where they will be most effective.

For the moment, just think about the roads in central Swindon. Most of them are slow speed — the traffic is too heavy for anyone to get anywhere near the speed limit for much of the day. However, there are a large number of traffic light controlled junctions, some of which already have cameras installed. By following his party’s line, Mr Montaut seems to value the safety in the ward he’s meant to represent less than he does in the suburbs in which he himself lives.

Mr McCloud seems increasingly inconsistent in his attempts to flog his development plans to the people of Swindon. It’s only a couple of weeks since he was claiming that his Northern Road development would be ‘imaginative’.

The site already has planning permission but for a fairly unimaginative scheme. We are turning that around to provide something with the emphasis on imagination.

I’ve never regarded pebbledash, his latest idea, as imaginative.

We are deliberately drawing back to the railway cottages. They are an inspiration for us. The pebbledashed buildings of Swindon are wonderful. I am trying to persuade our architects to do that with these, but I’m not sure they are going to agree.

Either Mr McCloud is unaware of the history of pebbledashing, or he’s trying to dress-up plans for low quality housing as something special. Pebbledashing of many houses in central Swindon is not an original feature. It was added much later, to hide the mismatch in materials or poor work when later building work was done. Its most common use in Swindon’s Victorian terraces is to hide the filling-in where the original windows have been replaced by wider 20th Century ones.

This is about offering great design on a budget. People get the light, space, storage, height and glamour but on a normal budget.

Glamorous pebbledash? It’s surprising that Mr McCloud should choose to associate his HAB Housing company with something that’s a signature of poor quality building work and the urban sprawl of the 1930s.

It’s good that we now have some more details and the rather speculative proposal for an indoor ski slope on the site of the Oasis. It’s less good that the reporting of those details is at best regurgitating the sales talk of the promoters and at worst just wrong.

THIS is the image that could represent Swindon to the rest of the country, and the world.

Actually, the image I have reproduced here is what the facility might look like — if you’re gullible enough to believe artist’s impressions that is. The image illustrating the Adver’s story is of the building with its lid off.

The multi-million pound snow dome would play host to the longest ski-run in the world.

Aah, spot the journalist who’s swallowed the promoter’s hype at face value. The actual length of the ski slope is just 980 ft: hardly world-record breaking. As explained on the promoter’s website, the design incorporates a moving circular slope that continuously rotates. The claimed length of the ‘ski-run’ is the distance that someone could ski in one hour — about 12 miles or 19 miles, depending on which page page of their site you believe — with the run rotating at maximum speed. That’s rather a lot of snow and hardware rotating at just under one revolution per minute.

THE SKI-TRAC DOME houses a huge 175-metre (570 ft) diameter rotating snowfield…. Using new “Mag-lev” technology, the snow deck, with its 200 mm (8 in) snow cover will “float” on an electro-magnetic field without the need for wheels, thus ensuring frictionless, vibrationless, silent, and maintenance-free rotation.

And that’s a maintenance-free flying pig I can see coming in to land. Nothing as big and complex as this bit of machinery is going to be maintenance free.

The whole contraption, including other attractions, climate control and snow production, would consume enough power that it would need its own gas-powered turbines to provide electricity.

Though such a venue might be a great asset for Swindon, in both planning terms and technology this proposal seems to have a very long way to go before getting vaguely close to reality.

A year ago, I suggested that, with some town centre sites that had already been demolished being amongst last scheduled for redevelopment, it would be good if they could be put to some use, rather than just surrounded with hoardings.

Some of the parts that have been demolished are, in the grand plan, the last that will be redeveloped, the old police station for example. As these sites would, even without the economic problems, be vacant for several years, you’d think something better could be done with them than just put hoardings round them. Just grassing them over to give a bit of green space for a while would be a big improvement.

The councillor with responsibility for such things at the time, Mr Young, agreed and said the process had already started.

Couldn’t agree more Komadori (sic). I have actually already kicked off a conversation to see if this can happen – either used to add additional parking to make it easier for people to get in to the Town, particularly during the construction phases when access may be more challenging and we need to do all we can to support the traders, or as green spaces for the interim.

I raised the issue again with the New Swindon Company in December, and was told that they were in discussion with Swindon Borough Council on some sites they could guarantee would be vacant for three years, with the intention that they could be used as a mini adventure park for children.

After over a year of talking, you’d think there might now be some action on this. By action I mean some construction, not yet more talking as proposed by Mr Martin.

The fact is that a lot of this land is going to be sitting there doing nothing for a number of years to come, so why not do something with it.

And it’s taken you a year to notice that?

At the moment we are working with the New Swindon Company to negotiate with landowners, in the areas where we don’t own the land, to get an agreement in principle.

As Mr Young said he had got things started a year ago, just how much discussion does it need?

We will then be putting it forward for consultation. We want to hear what ideas people have.

Fine, but why wait until now when this has been given consideration for over a year already?

I really hope to get it initiated this year. First we have to look at consultation with the owners, then with the public. We are probably looking at some time in the autumn for that.

Initiated this year? That be political spin for no action until next year.

With the economic recession already slowing Swindon town centre’s regeneration to a snail’s pace, this dithering by Swindon Borough Council beggars belief. With only £140,000 for the scheme, they could well spend more money on talking than on actually doing anything.

Mr Slattery of Saint Mary’s Catholic Church seems not to be very media savvy.

I was a bit surprised when Ladbrokes approached me about taking on a charity bet. Of course I’m not promoting gambling, and I know the damage it has done to some families.

I wonder in what way Mr Slattery thinks that getting Ladbrokes a free mention in both local and national press is not promoting gambling. At just £50 (or £1300 if he wins), the bookies have got an advertising bargain.