komadori’s green corner

I’ll say more on this when Halcrow’s report has been made public, but for the moment I have two observations on the plans to bring a canal back into Swindon that were presented to yesterday’s meeting of Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet.

1. Nobody but the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust and the cabinet of Swindon Borough Council have so far seen the Halcrow report: it has been kept secret and we’re having to trust our local politicians. To me it looks like they’ve something to hide.
2. To say, as they do, that
   

   Of the hundreds of people who came in, only three were against the canal. One was drunk, the second one just opened the door and shouted obscenities and the third person spoke to us for an hour before coming back the next day wanting to know more.

   is a blatant lie. In my one visit to the Canal Trust’s Regent Circus premises, there were more opponents to the plans that came in than that. Admittedly, they were outnumbered by those in favour, but there were more than three in just one hour.

I like the idea of a canal being re-introduced to Swindon, but I want it to be done on the basis of honest and open discussion, not through secrecy and lies.

It seems I may have been a little harsh in my criticisms of the Swindon Front Garden Action Group’s claims about the wetness of the Swindon Front Garden. Today, after a week of fairly continuous, and at times very heavy, rain, the area eventually to become West Wichel (but for the moment still called South Leaze) contained four large expanses of water. ’Tis rather unfortunate, given that the plans only include one. The access-road embankment will make a fine viewing point for the water below. Rather than seeking a developer who is

Someone who doesn’t just deal in the bricks and mortar of sustainability but someone who knows how to create sustainable communities.

I suggest Mr Bluh would be wiser to seek out a good boat builder.

The plans for some of the affordable housing blocks of East Wichel recently submitted look positively Victorian. Whilst some of the earlier Swindon Front Garden planning applications had that semi–fake-victoriana look that is becoming so familiar in the infilling of every vacant space of Old Town, these look, from the ‘street scenes’ (developers’ fantasies to you) that the developers are obliged to include with their plans, much closer to the real thing. Previous plots show a lack of scale, with steep rooves and three or four storey houses, to pack as many houses into as small a space as possible. ‘Parcel 18’ is the lucky winner of rows of victorianesque two-storey terraces.

komadori suspects it is only the proximity of this plot to the M4 motorway that has prevented the developers being more greedy: taller buildings would not have been effectively protected by the ‘sound barrier’ (big mound of earth to you) that is being constructed between these houses and the motorway.

Another announcement from the New Swindon Company… and another beyond-belief artist’s impression, this one for the Promenade development. Street lights have never twinkled so prettily. But for the moment, all we’re getting is a feasibility study, which, given that large parts of the area have already been cleared, seems a little late.

I also see from the announcement that there’s another partnership to add to my list.

• Swindon Cultural Partnership (Swindon Borough Council, the New Swindon Company, local companies and assorted arts quangos)

Whilst I have expressed my concerns about the information presented to the recent Licensing Panel of Swindon Borough Council, and find the licensing section of their website aimed more at applicants than objectors, to say, as the New Mechanics’ Institution Preservation Trust does that.

Only as things moved along did we come to understand what was permitted by the Licensing Act. It was our first effort to deal with licensing under the Act.

is no defence. The trust is a campaigning organisation. It has played the planning laws more many years; it knows how regulatory bodies in this country work. If you want to object, you read up on the rules about what you are allowed to object about first. That the owners of the GWR Mechanics’ Institution were successful in their licensing application comes as no surprise.

And for the Trust to claim that they are a ‘similar business’ to that proposed for the Institution by its owners suggests that the Trust have forgotten about all those differences they objected to so vociferously in the earlier planning applications.

That’s the opinion of the council officer commenting on the New Mechanics’ Institution Preservation Trust’s submission on a licensing application from Forefront Properties. It is the latest bout in the saga of the GWR Mechanics’ Institution building. As reported in the Adver, the council officer’s view is that

The overall sentiment of the letter from the Trust appears to be that no-one other than the Trust should be permitted to bring the Mechanics’ Institute into use.

However, we only have the council officer’s opinion of that as, in the papers for the licensing panel meeting, they have edited out everything they view as inadmissible. The sentiment expressed in what little is left, seems significantly more restrained than that described by the council officer. It seems a bit odd that the panel are being asked to make a judgement on whether the submission was vexatious, without being given the evidence.

The answer, apparently, is quite a lot. A quick trawl through the web came up with the list below.

• Swindon Local Area Agreement (Swindon Borough Council, the Government Office for the South West, Swindon Strategic Partnership and other quangos)
• Swindon Strategic Partnership (Swindon Borough Council, parish councils and voluntary groups, with observers from the South West Regional Development Agency and the Government Office for the South West)
• Swindon Strategic Economic Partnership (Swindon Borough Council, the South West Regional Development Agency, the New Swindon Company, Swindon Learning Partnership, other quangos and local companies.)
• New Swindon Company (urban regeneration company owned by Swindon Borough Council, the South West Regional Development Agency and English Partnerships)
• Great Western Community Forest (an unincorporated association of Swindon Borough Council, other local councils and the Forestry Commission)
• inSwindon (town centre management company, set-up by Swindon Borough Council with town-centre companies on the board)
• Swindon Learning Partnership (seemingly not a partnership at all, just an office of Swindon Borough Council but with over 120 ‘members’)

Now, I’m sure some of these do worthwhile work but, looking at that list, it does seem rather incestuous, with partnerships forming further partnerships, all with the added cost of yet another bureaucracy. A bit of digging on these organisations’ websites reveals that they are all a consequence of one or other central government ‘initiative’, wherein getting hold of some extra money for Swindon from central government (or stopping central government taking money away) is dependent on setting up a new quango.

If national government thinks that a way to improve local participation in democracy is to add multiple layers of bureaucracy, then its understanding of democracy is clearly very wrong indeed.

Methinks the local blue nest may have got themselves a little confused over their own party’s policies. There’s a motion on the agenda for the coming week’s council meeting supporting the election of police chief constables.

10. Motion – Elected Chief Constables
Councillor Nick Martin will move and Councillor Peter Greenhalgh will second:

This Council supports the concept of a local, directly elected chief constable or commissioner of police. This Council ask the Leader of the Council to write to

a) the Home Secretary to offer Swindon as a location for a pilot scheme.

b) the chair of the Wiltshire Police Authority to see if the Authority would support the application for a pilot scheme.

Which is a little odd, because the one thing their party’s policy makers have explicitly excluded is the election of chief constables — directly elected commissioners to replace appointed police authorities yes, but not directly elected chief constables.

I’d prefer the local police to be concentrating of reducing crime, not on fighting elections.

With rubbish collections due tomorrow in this area, I see that, quite apart from the ‘no more black bags’ message having not got through, the ‘only two blue bags per week’ message still hasn’t got through to many households either: there are some with over twice that number put out for collection… regularly. And as the dustmen, whilst refusing to collect black bags, seem to quite contentedly collect any number of blue bags, I reckon that some people will soon be running out. At which point, they’ll revert to using black bags… which won’t be collected. Swindon in the spring is going to look so pretty….

The plans to replace the former tented market with a ‘pavilion’ of cafes is to be discussed by Swindon Borough Council Planning Committee on Tuesday. I’m not sure what the planning officer was looking at when she was considering the plan, but her report seems to be talking about something significantly more impressive than the artist’s impression — never known for showing developments in a poor light — of the new development.

The ‘pavilion’ offers a light and contemporary design solution to this tired part of the town centre and it will hopefully act as a catalyst for the regeneration of the surrounding streets and premises….

The full height glazing to the units is welcome and the brise soleil provides a contemporary architectural detail. The curved glazed facing Commercial Road provides an interesting gateway to Wharf Green both during the day and the evening….

The ‘pavilion’ has been designed using contemporary architecture which is light and simple. It is a building that can be viewed in the round as a centre point from a variety of vista’s. It responds well to the area and will be a positive catalyst to the future of the town centre regeneration.

I’d thought it was the role of planning officers to provide the committee with objective advice, not subjective opinions. Well, in my opinion, the proposed structure is no more ‘contemporary’ than the existing one. The existing building is a landmark. The proposed building is just another retail block no different from many to be found elsewhere.