The scene: an office near the end of the working day, with one Deloitte consultant talking to a fellow Deloitte consultant.
Hilary: Is that a new laptop carrying capability you’ve got there?
David (preparing to leave): Err?
Hilary (pointing): Your bag, is it new?
(Overheard today, and spoken without even the faintest hint of humour or sarcasm. Names may have been changed to protect the parasite over-paid innocent.)
Mr Rushforth of the University of the West of England believes that the Oakfield site in Swindon does not feel like a university.
I am not sure that people thinking of sending their sons or daughters to university would think it was appropriate. It does not have the feel of a university campus.
I’m not sure what Mr Rushforth thinks a university campus should feel like: his own Frenchay campus in Bristol is not exactly stunning. Oakfield is mainly flat open fields, much like the site near Coate Water that he would prefer to locate a UWE Swindon branch on. Frenchay is also quite flat, but looks like a factory estate and office park. Neither feel like a university campus to me, but Oakfield does have the benefit that with some good architecture and landscaping — plus a smattering of students, of course — it could be made to look and feel like one. For the Frenchay campus it is already too late.
The fields around Coate don’t feel to me like a housing estate. I doubt that would convince Mr Rushforth’s developer partners. Logically, the planning inspector should find Mr Rushforth’s argument equally unconvincing.
It must seem like an unfortunate bit of timing for the blue nest councillors controlling Swindon Borough Council that, whilst they are attempting to axe the Park & Ride bus service, for a claimed saving of £331,000, that unnecessary and unelected bureaucracy known as the South West Regional Assembly has decided to chuck £150M in the direction of Swindon for transport improvements. Our developers’ poodle, Mr Bawden, seems pleased with this outcome, despite the embarrassment that it might cause his colleagues. The expenditure includes £22M and £111M for phases 1 & 2 respectively of the Swindon Rapid Transit Network. Phase 1 concentrates on ‘traffic management’ — so more roundabouts and traffic lights. Phase 2 concentrates on public transport.
Development of a two tier public transport network with rapid transit corridors; increase in bus routes covering most areas of Swindon; exploring technology options for rapid transit corridor.
Both phases claim to address the issue of ‘Existing P&R schemes under utilised.’ If the current administration in Swindon gets its way, they won’t just be under utilised; they’ll be non-existent.
I’ve visited two exhibitions today showing visions for Swindon. First was the young amateurs. The ‘Visions for Swindon’ exhibition by Swindon College School of Arts included several imaginative designs. Being from young students, some lacked practicality, but the more realistic ones still showed original ideas that if turned into reality would be unique.
Then it was on to the professionals. The New Swindon Company’s exhibition of their designs for tidying up Canal Walk. Now, I’m all in favour of things green, but the proposal for a green wall is completely out-of-place A solid wall of greenery in a place where it’s surrounded by steel, glass and concrete walls looks ridiculous. It would look rather less silly if they spread it around a bit, so that there was some greenery on all the surrounding walls too. According to one of the company’s representatives at the exhibition, it will be first in the country. I guess she’s never seen an ivy covered wall, nor read her company’s own bumf which says there’s already one in London.
Then there’s the water features. The water jets in the display have already been dropped, I was told. The other water feature in the design, stylised puddles, or ‘Natural Stone Rainwater Water Features’ as the designers call them, were clearly giving the representatives a few problems: they were very keen to emphasise that they wouldn’t be a safety risk.
With the hyperbole being spouted to support these proposals making repeated reference to the Wilts & Berks Canal, it’s odd that they propose to relocate the Golden Lion statue. A statue that marks the site of the Golden Lion Bridge over the canal is rather pointless elsewhere.
Adding to the hyperbole, as has become traditional for all matters related to town centre regeneration, is one of our local councillors. This time, it’s Mr Young’s turn to be in twaddle mode.
We think greenery helps bring the town centre back to life and makes it a much more pleasant place to be and make people come into the town even if it’s just to see it.
I agree that it’ll make the town centre more pleasant, but if people are going somewhere just to see greenery, I suspect they’ll choose the countryside where there’s rather more of it.
McDonald’s felt that before Wharf Green was done, it was dragging the area down.
Hmm… guess they didn’t like the competition.
It’s very important to us to set a high standard with public realm improvements, and we want to hear what local people have to say.
Aah, the deceit of faux consultation! With work on Canal Walk due to start in July, the time for influencing the design is well passed. The New Swindon Company’s hubris is equally over-the-top.
The design concept aims to provide a vibrant, accessible street scene, encouraging visitors and shoppers to come to Swindon town centre as an exciting destination in its own right as well as for the shopping.
It’ll take rather more than a few trees, a hedge, new paving stones and stylised puddles to do that.
By renewing Canal Walk we aim to… provide a unique identity and quality environment… making Swindon an exciting place to visit.
A few trees an puddles amongst the paving stones as a source of excitement… developers must lead a dull life.
The designs for Canal Walk are the effort of no less than four consultancy companies. The New Swindon Company would’ve been better off hiring the college students.
Mr Greenhalgh seems to be long on knock-about yaa-boo politics and short of eyesight. He’s quick to criticise Mr Montaut.
I’m disappointed that, as with the Christmas Tree on the Magic Roundabout, Councillor Montaut believes that the people of Swindon are going to damage something just because it’s there.
Look around you, Mr Greenhalgh. Have you not noticed the graffiti tags that deface much of our town? Have you forgotten your statement to Council in April of last year?
Councillor Peter Greenhalgh responded that, in relation to Graffiti, evidence had been provided in 15 cases resulting in 7 convictions, a number of cautions and other cases remained on going.
Mr Montaut may often seem to be a bit of a joke and more interested in the concerns of the residents of north Swindon — where he lives — than with those of central Swindon — which he is meant to represent. But that doesn’t mean those residents’ concerns should be glibly dismissed.
How clever of the Adver, on the day rain washed much of the remaining snow away, to publish a story exalting residents to clear the pavements in front of their homes. Reporting has never been so timely….
There appears to be a difference of opinion in the local red nest on whether or not Swindon Borough Council should dip into its reserves to keep council tax down. On the one hand, there’s the Snelgrovian view, expressed last November, that it’s good to spend some reserves to keep council tax low.
I don’t know how much Swindon Council has in reserves but I do know that the council needs to be thinking how it can do this [cut council tax]…. We all have to make sure that people are helped so I think that Swindon Council should be looking at its capital reserves and seeing if it can do something even if it is a one-off.
Then there’s the view of Mr Small, adamant that use of reserves is a bad thing.
There seems to be a £1.8m gap between the 3.5 per cent increase and what is needed to balance the budget. Some of that will be paid for with one-off monies. This budget is going to give us a debt of at least £2m because of the use of one-off monies. That will have to be carried over into next year’s budget.
Perhaps Mr Small should give his friend Mr Brown some advice about keeping out of debt.
I see that Ms Snelgrove is having trouble with her memory.
I pride myself upon being an open and accountable Member of Parliament and I am happy for my constituents to see what allowances I use in order to serve the people of South Swindon.
She seems to have forgotten that in 2007 she voted against making it a legal obligation for those expenses to be published.
The BBC seem to have misread the adjudication from the Office of the Schools Adjudicator for school in Oakhurst. The Beeb’s interpretation suggests that the Al-Habib Islamic Education and Culture Centre’s proposal was successful.
The Muslim voluntary-aided school in the Oakhurst area of the town would give priority to Muslim families for half the places. Adjudicators said they were impressed by the Al-Habib educational centre’s plans for the school which would see Muslims integrated with other faiths.
Well, yes, the adjudicators did say they were impressed by the Al-Habib Centre proposals, but, as the Adver has correctly reported, they still opted for Swindon Borough Council’s community school proposal.
Conclusion
There is a clear and urgent need to open a new primary school to meet the needs of the new community of Oakhurst in North Swindon. The overwhelming majority of those living in the area support the proposal made by the Council for a Community Primary School. Whilst the proposal made by the Al-Habib Centre has a number of positive features, it is less strong than the proposal made by the Council in the key areas of school standards, impact on travel and community cohesion and the support shown by parents and others. We therefore conclude that the new school should be a Community School established and operated by Swindon Borough Council.
It’s nice to see our national public broadcaster checking their facts so carefully.
Update, Sunday 8 February I see the Beeb corrected themselves at 10:12 this morning.
