komadori’s green corner

The BBC Big Screen Swindon in Wharf Green has now been switched on, with workmen busily filling in the remaining gaps in the paving. This must now be one of the most inappropriately named places in Swindon, being named after a wharf that disappeared almost a hundred years ago, and now bereft of almost all greenery. As for the screen itself, the newly planted row of trees (to make up for some of those cut down last year) help obscure it from Canal Walk. Having now seen the screen working, I remain of the opinion that it will not live up to the hype. It’s a welcome addition to the town centre, but nothing stunning.

Two news stories, that the prime site occupied by Mecca bingo is likely to be vacant for an extended period and that Swindon now has Britain’s biggest charity shop, both suggest that the fortunes of Swindon town centre are currently on the way down, not up. Except for in the very centre of the town, there are many other vacant shops too.

Any regeneration plan will go through a period where it makes the local economy worse not better, but that is usually at the height of the reconstruction work. This slide is before redevelopment has really started. Just as a patient needs to be of reasonable strength (even if in poor health) before a surgeon will operate, so a town centre needs to have a certain level of vitality if it is to withstand a major redevelopment.

The planners need to be mindful of the condition of their patient, rather than being too enthralled with grand plans.

It’s not just the recent weather that has been unseasonal. The run-up to this year’s local elections has also been unusually quiet. But at least we have the list of candidates now (and despite having ‘2004’ in the link it is for this year). It looks a little more local than usual, with three of the Central ward candidates living in the ward itself: Kevin Leakey, David Cox and Eric Bagwell. The other two are a little more remote: Hannah Pajak from Old Town and Junab Ali from Freshbrook. Apart from that all we have to judge the candidates on are a couple of manifestos, from the blue and red nests. The blue nest are long on what they have done, but short on what they will do in the future. The red nest accuse the blues of wasting money on a canal… only to suggest spending on investigating whether trams should be introduced into Swindon. Now that’s far more likely to cause ‘traffic chaos’ than a canal down one road ever will.

If the architects are to believed, a proposal for a monolithic terrace of flats, clad in white acrylic and zinc will

pay homage to the L-shaped terraced and rectangular semis that are their neighbours.

With such imagination do the developers try to push unsuitable proposals through. Who has ever seen a zinc-clad Victorian terrace or 1930’s semi?

I found myself oddly disappointed by a lunchtime visit to the Pagoda Palace restaurant this week. It’s not that there was anything wrong with the meal: there wasn’t. The food was good, in the English Chinese-restaurant style. The deep-fried cuttlefish dumplings for starter were exquisitely formed and the main course of chicken with black bean sauce and green pepper was tasty, as were the plain-fried noodles with beansprouts that I chose to accompany it. Other dishes sampled were of equal quality, though in the seafood dishes flavoured with ‘salt and chilli’ the former is rather too prominent. The venue is great, with a fine location overlooking a lake. Indeed, at an average of £18 for two courses, in comparison with other restaurants in Swindon at lunchtime, at least some of that price would appear to be for the location rather than the food. With the same price in the evening it’s distinctly good value. The service was good too, although the repeated enquiry ‘Would you like anything more to drink?’ was more that a little irksome by its fourth repeat. What let the place down though was that, of the twelve items that the group I was with ordered, three were either not available or, in the case of duck, only available if we were prepared to wait ‘one or two hours’.

The Palace is a large restaurant, seating up to three hundred people, and their menu is long. At lunchtimes, when the number of customers is small (there were only three groups there when we visited, amounting to less than twenty people in total) they should perhaps offer a smaller menu, so that what they offer matches more closely what they can deliver.

It seems odd to me that Thamesdown Transport’s latest fares rise has caused more fuss than their planned route changes, especially as it earlier plans for these route changes ran into so much political opposition. Leading the fuss, step forward Mr Montaut, continuing his approach of not allowing a lack of knowledge on an issue get in the way of him expressing an opinion.

This is deplorable. What the company needs to do is start focusing more on customers and getting people on their buses and less on their own income. The traditional return fare is offered all over the country, but now it is being axed in Swindon. I have the feeling that if Thamesdown continues to act in this fashion pressure groups are going to start popping up for the buses like they have on trains and planes. The thing is, though, if the company acted more responsibly it would not have to come to this.

Absense of return bus fares is actually not that uncommon. As an example Nottingham City Transport which, like Thamesdown Transport is council owned and also like Thamesdown Transport has a no-change-given exact fare only policy, does not offer return fares. And whilst nobody would disagree that Thamesdown Transport should try to get more passengers on its buses, if it ignores its income we, the council taxpayers of Swindon, will end up the owners of a loss-making company. Perhaps Mr Montaut has forgotten his earlier concerns about the level of subsidy paid to the bus company.

The fares increases proposed range from zero (for a single zone single) through 5% for a single zone return journey and 7% for a two zone single, to 11% for a two zone return journey. Day tickets and season tickets are increasing by between 7% and 12%. Fares increases that are so high that passenger numbers by so much that the bus company ends up worse off are not clever. But with motorists costs rising steeply too, I’d describe these fares increases as predictable, rather than deplorable.

The flow of ministers to prop-up the local red nest’s election campaign continues. This time ’tis Mr Dhanda who, like his Swindon colleagues, is a committed hypocrite, campaigning against his own party’s post office closures. He’s also a practitioner of the red nest habit of making glib claims of their achievements, when all the facts show the opposite.

Tackling problem behaviour is something the Labour Government is committed to. We are on the side of hard-working families and that is something clearly visible here in Swindon.

Releasing convicted criminals early after only half their sentence, as introduced by the red nest government’s early release scheme, is an odd approach to ‘tackling problem behaviour’. And in case Mr Dhanda hasn’t noticed, one thing the Broadgreen area is lacking is families (hard-working or not), having the highest density of houses in multiple occupation (i.e. bedsits) in Swindon. The hard-working single people that frequently occupy those bedsits are neglected by politicians of all colours.

I see that Mr Cartwright from the Wilts and Berks Canal Trust is, once again, demonstrating his contempt for the people of Swindon, brushing aside any concerns that are expressed. In response to an Adver survey showing over 63% of a sample of 1000 people were against the proposals to reintroduce a canal to central Swindon, Mr Cartwright takes the ‘glass one third full’ approach.

It still means that a third of people support it. A lot of people’s response is probably because there has been a lot of negativity in the newspapers about the canal. Then when you ask people a yes or no question like this they immediately think of all the negative aspects – it’ll cause traffic problems, it’ll cost me lots of money. I think we need to get across to people that the canal will not cost them anything and that the traffic problems in the centre have to be solved with or without the canal.

His “it won’t cost a thing” argument is getting monotonous now. It may not appear in the council tax, but ultimately, whether it be by companies re-developing central Swindon passing a levy onto the people, or central government taxation, we will end up paying the £52M that the canal will cost. Let’s also not forget that the £52M price tag does not include the costs of buying land nor of works to relieve traffic congestion resulting from the canal.

Speaking of which, Mr Cartwright’s comments about traffic congestion suggest that he has not read the report that his own organisation and Swindon Borough Council commissioned.

To conclude; this initial modelling work indicates that closing Westcott Place and Faringdon Road to general traffic would have some negative traffic impacts, including increases in traffic delay, increased journey lengths (due to detours), and possibly the loss of some on-street parking. However, the modelling shows that other areas of the network will experience reductions in traffic/congestion, and hence, overall the network would not reach capacity and therefore could accommodate the closure of Westcott Place and Faringdon Road. However, other potential future year changes may also add to congestion in the Borough, which may result in unacceptable delays.

That’s not the benign outcome that Mr Cartwright is trying to portray, but a statement that building a canal will bring forward the time when Swindon’s streets reach gridlock.

If Mr Cartwright wishes to gain the support of the people of Swindon for his plans, he needs to address their concerns, not dismiss them.

I’m not sure who’s in charge at the Adver but just a day after Mr Brown launched the red nest’s local election campaign emphasising increases in community policing, the Adver has chosen to highlight the very same thing. However, much though the red nest like to crow about how much of our money they poor into various activities and gimmicks, what matters are results. The evidence at the moment is that all the extra money spent on Police Community Support Officers has had no tangible benefit.

Spending our money and getting nothing as a result is something I would hope no local politician would be proud of. I fully expect to be disappointed over the coming month.

Just a day after Mr Wills’ hypocritical outburst over post office closures, Ms Snelgrove has been talking on the very same subject in parliament. Did she take the opportunity to express concern over the closure of post offices in Swindon, or to express surprise that, despite representations to the ‘consultation’, all the Post Office’s closure plans in this area remained unchanged? Of course not. Instead she chose to repeat Mr Wills’ attack on the local council.

I share concerns about the consultation process, but does he share my anger about the fact that Tory-controlled Swindon borough council has not taken part in the consultation exercise, and did not attend any of the meetings held by Postwatch or the Post Office? The Conservatives in Swindon are now jumping on the bandwagon, but have made no representations to the Post Office or to Postwatch about the closures in my constituency.

And just what did Ms Snelgrove do for the post offices in her constituency, apart from having her photo taken in one of the doomed post offices? Although she sent out a letter inviting people to sign a petition against the closures, she has, since then, been remarkably silent on the subject. Clearly, she’s far more keen to attack the opposition than do anything for her constituents. It’s no wonder Ms Snelgrove is often referred to as The Government’s representative in South Swindon.

When yesterday given the opportunity again to express their opposition to the post office closures:

• Mr Wills voted in favour of the government’s programme of post office closures;
• Ms Snelgrove voted in favour of the government’s programme of post office closures.

With duplicitous behaviour like this, it’s no surprise that politicians are held in low esteem.