komadori’s green corner

’Tis odd what Mr Wills thinks will impressive his constituents. There’s many that question the value to Swindon of the New Swindon Company — there’s little that it does that seemingly would not happen if it didn’t exist. Having claimed it as his own creation. it’s not surprising that he’s somewhat disappointed that the company disapproves of his own government’s reduction to business rate relief on empty commercial properties. That Mr Wills regards concern over a policy that is leading to premature demolition of vacant commercial properties in central Swindon as “destructive, ill-informed game-playing” and has nothing constructive to say himself on the issue suggests that he cares little for the town he represents. In Swindon, the widespread demolition ahead of regeneration now delayed by the stalling economy is a clear blight on the town centre. The concerns raised deserve a considered response.

From the title alone, those with an interest in such things will realise that this is a post about re-desecration regeneration of Swindon. Yet another development has been described using the developers’ favourite term “vibrant”. This time it’s the few remaining open spaces within the former railway works that’s now, apparently, renamed “Churchward Village”. Thomas Homes are redeveloping the area occupied by the railway works traverser, which has been labelled “Smith’s Quarter”. In their own words,

Thomas Homes is bringing new life to the former locomotive works of the Great Western Railway as part of an extensive regeneration project to include an urban residential development of apartments and houses, leisure facilities, restaurants, hotel accommodation and office suites which will provide a vibrant community in the heart of Swindon.

I’m not sure what a “vibrant community” is. According to my dictionary, “vibrant” means “vibrating, thrilling with (action, etc.); resonant.” A vibrating community sounds to me like one in need of medical attention. Perhaps they’ll be shaking after a visit to the “vibrant” redeveloped town centre… though somehow I doubt it. A big television and a shopping centre with new canopies are hardly likely to have them overcome with emotion.

It’s also difficult to see just what in this new development is going to contribute to the vitality of the town. It’s just more flats, 245 of them. With flats leading the fall in property prices they’re unlikely to be “integral to the regeneration of Swindon” as the developer’s consultants claim. Mr Brotherton of Thomas Homes makes some equally unrealistic claims.

Churchward Village is a superb development in a great location surrounded by listed buildings. It is also something completely different for Swindon, bringing character close to the town centre… it’s bringing something new to Swindon.

Let’s hope Mr Bretherton has a better grasp of construction and economics than he does of design and novelty. Yet more flats, and fairly bland looking flats at that, will neither be something new nor bring character to Swindon.

Mr Beaumont-Jones, director of the Brunel Centre, must live in a state of permanent excitement, amazed by the wonder of every dull, mundane thing he sees. Why else would someone describe the replacement of the Brunel Centre’s old, distinctive but filthy canopies with standard canopies, as seen in hundreds of town centres, in such overblown terms.

I think shoppers are going to be impressed. It’s going to transform the town centre.

It will certainly improve the appearance of the centre, but not to the extent Mr Beaumont-Jones would have us believe. The planning application shows something distinctly conventional. Even the artist’s impression — not known for understating the beauty of proposed buildings — shows, by day, an unremarkable building. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the one chosen to illustrate the Adver’s report was the more impressive night-time view.

There’s been a lot of talk, from the council, the development quango and the developers, of transforming Swindon town centre. If this is an example then, when the credit-crunch-delayed transformation finally happens, the people of Swindon are going to be very disappointed.

Whilst I can see the advantages of doubling the rail line from Swindon to Gloucester (the ‘Stroud Valley Line’ according to locals, or the ‘Golden Valley Line’ according to the operators), I suspect that Ms Girling (a councillor on more councils than is reasonable) may be rather disappointed with the outcome if Gloucestershire County Council’s campaign is successful. She seems to overestimate the area’s commercial attractions.

Without the extra track there is a real danger that the growth in new housing will far outstrip new jobs leading to a slowdown in the local economy, more people commuting out of the area and the inevitable knock-on effect of more congestion.

Err… commuting is a two-way thing, and improving the rail service will make it just as easy to commute out of the area as it will to commute into the area. I suspect that Swindon’s employment might benefit more than the Stroud Valley.

Ms Girling’s comments remind me of those of Sheffield City Council during the 1990s. They were adamant that the opening of the tram line from the city centre to the Meadowhall Centre would revitalise the city, encouraging the thousands that went to Meadowhall for shopping to make the journey to the city centre’s run-down shopping areas. It didn’t. What it did was enable city centre workers to make the trip to Meadowhall within their lunch break, further depleting trade for city centre stores. It took another ten years for the city centre to recover. I suspect this is not the effect that Ms Girling has in mind.

It may not have rained for long during this afternoon’s thunderstorms, but it was certainly heavy… about 1½″ in the last 24 hours by my measurements, most of that this afternoon.

Just a week after Swindon Borough Council suggested doubling the number of plastic bags used for throwing away rubbish, we now have an even less efficient suggestion from a local resident: freeze your rubbish, then put it in your wheelie the night before collection. Ms Harris, whose idea this is, seems to be rather proud of her ‘logic’ in coming up with this idea.

I’ve done it ever since I’ve had a wheelie bin and I’ve never had maggots. It was an idea I just came up with myself. My husband says I apply logic to everything and it doesn’t always work, but this does.

It’s such a great idea, I’m thinking of buying an industrial freezer and providing, for a reasonable fee, maggot protection services to my neighbours…. On second thoughts, perhaps not. Let’s examine Ms Harris’ logic.

It’s simple. Instead of throwing away old plastic containers, that you get things like strawberries in, keep them. Put all your scrap foods and bits and bobs from your plate into the container…

That assumes you buy sufficient amounts of overpackaged food to store the scrap food in. It also assumes that the problem waste is sufficiently dry not to leak out of the container.

then put them in the corner of the freezer.

The corner of the freezer? Just how big a freezer is this? Someone cooking meals daily could easily generate more than just a ‘corner’ of waste in one fortnight. Those not doing serious cooking but reheating pre-packaged food are likely to have large amounts of bulky soiled packaging even less suitable for this treatment. And placing waste in proximity to waste: I’m sure the Health & Safety wonks would have a fit about that. Freezing significantly slows the decay process, it doesn’t totally stop it.

Anything frozen will not attract vermin or maggots or anything.

In a fortnight, true, but until it freezes you’ve got waste potentially oozing whatever contamination it already has over food in the freezer.

I’ve done it ever since I’ve had a wheelie bin and I’ve never had maggots.

There’s as much sense to that as there would be to burning all food just to avoid the risk of it being undercooked. Admittedly, the council’s own suggestion of double-wrapping rubbish is not much better.

According to Swindon Borough Council’s own figures, each week’s rubbish collection costs less than 75p per household.* Anything that costs more to prevent the maggot infestations is a step backwards in efficiency from the well-known Victorian solution to the problem.†

*Up to 1 tonne of rubbish per household per year with the cost of collection in 2004/05 (in the era of weekly collections) £38.62 per tonne.
†Yes, I know just a minority of households have suffered wheelie bin infestation, but the council’s advise is to everyone, not just the afflicted few.

Central Swindon has a parking problem. The residents parking zones have insufficient space for the residents and it isn’t helped by non-residents parking where they shouldn’t. Since the council took over responsibility for enforcement of parking regulations from the police, the rules have been far more rigorously applied, far more wardens employed.

Surely a good thing for central Swindon then? Not according to Mr Montaut. Rather than representing his Central ward residents, he seems, once again, more interested in political point scoring, finding it objectionable for Swindon Borough Council to collect fines even though he is content when they go to central government.

It’s about time Mr Montaut remembered he was elected to represent this ward, not his party.

Over at the Adver it has been a slow news week. Not because there isn’t much to report (though to be honest, there isn’t much to report), but because their new gee-whiz website is rather lacking in gee and totally lacking in whiz. The site has stumbled along since the revamp, struggling to serve up news stories.

It seems that in the rush to make things more interactive, Newsquest, which owns the Adver, have forgotten the importance of thorough testing before unleashing their developers’ handiwork on the public. They’re not the first, by a long way, to make this mistake in the rush to convert sites to “web 2”. What does seem to distinguish them is how slow they are at putting things right.

Either that or someone thinks it’s a clever way to persuade people to go and buy the newspaper instead of waiting and waiting… and waiting in front of their PC for the Adver website to respond.

What do you do if you’re worried about getting maggots in your wheelie? According to Swindon Borough Council you wrap them up well, twice.

Food waste shouldn’t be left uncovered in the house, as it can attract flies to lay eggs on it before it goes into the bin, so it’s best to place it immediately in the bin, securely and preferably double-wrapped.

So that’s the council recommending that you increase what you throw away. Rubbish will have never been so well cosseted. If as the council claim,

Wheelie bin lids, if kept tightly closed, prevent flies from getting at the contents.

why the need for double-wrapping?

In all the fuss over the proposal for a new ‘GP led health centre’ in central Swindon, there’s one argument that I find rather empty, and that’s whether the centre might or should be run by a ‘private provider’. Today’s letter to the Adver from the Whalebridge Practice has raised the point again.

We have reservations about the planned introduction of so-called polyclinics and private providers and question if such ventures are wanted, needed or provide an effective use of valuable resources.

What seems to be forgotten is that the existing GP practices are not as public-sector as some might think. The GPs run their own practices under contract to the NHS: they are not employees of the NHS in the way that a nurse is. I wonder whether what is concerning the GPs more, as has often concerned them during the sixty years of the NHS, is the threat to their independence that these centres might pose. Although branded as ‘GP led’, with some of the commercial organisations that have expressed an interest, it is clear that they may not be ‘GP controlled’.