Tag: squeeze

I’ve commented before about the antiquated appearance of the houses being built on Swindon’s front garden and its potential for creating a run-down appearance. Now it seems that the public buildings within Wichelstowe will be taking that concept to new depths.

A primary school with ‘community facilities’ and nursery proposed for ‘Parcel 36’ of East Wichel has a very Victorian looking front. Behind that is tagged on something looking like a cheap 1970s extension. The overall effect of the design for Swindon Borough Council is a ramshackle building that appears to have been starved of funds before it’s even been built.

Actually, given that this expansion of Swindon has been imposed by central government with little, if any, financial support, that last thought might not be far from the truth.

Packing houses in, that is. With even the ever-optimistic Mr Bluh admitting that residential development around Swindon is slowing, you might think that the pressure to concrete over the area around Coate Water might have eased. Not so. The Swindon Gateway Partnership (Persimmon and Redrow) is back with revised plans for 1,550 little boxes houses and a mystery university. It’s good to read that the council don’t intend to let the developers get their way until there’s evidence that the prospect of a university occupying the site is reality rather than fantasy. With public funding of universities stagnating (apart from what looks like a pre-election spending binge during the current financial year) that’s shouldn’t be too soon.

The Adver seems to be trying to out-do Mr Bluh’s extreme optimism. In his words,

It would be very easy to sit here and be full of doom and gloom about the year to come. But I think we have got grounds to be optimistic. We are on a long journey and it doesn’t matter how much flood water there is we will keep on that road. We are focussed on business as normal but we have to be realistic about the challenges that will face us.

To me that reads as though he believes regeneration will continue but not at the same pace as was originally hoped. To the Adver, it translates as ‘full steam ahead’. You don’t need to have listened to much political spin to know that when a politician talks about a ‘long journey’, the journey will be longer than they originally predicted. With the forthcoming signs of progress being yet more demolition — this time at the former Swindon College site — rather than construction, Mr Bluh’s ‘optimism’ is little cause for excitement.

The first houses of the Wichelstowe development are now being built, near the site of Westlecott Farm. Even at this early stage, it is easy to see that the houses are being tightly packed, with very little space between the terrace almost completed and the one just started construction behind. With the fake-Victorian design, you could be forgiven for thinking that this might end up looking like one of those areas in the northern industrial cities that were cleared as slums during the 1970s.

There weren’t many buildings in the part of Swindon’s front garden that is to be developed: just four. West Leaze cottages were demolished last December, Westlecott Farm was demolished this February. Now South Leaze Farm Cottages look like they are heading the same way. That will just leave South Leaze Farm. It seems wasteful that in their plans, the for 4,500 new houses, the developers cannot find a space for just four old ones. Is there not something to gain by having a little charm and character in an otherwise uniform modern development? West Leaze cottages have made way for nothing more than a road junction, which could easily have been moved 20′ south to allow them to remain. It would seem that the Wichelstowe planners are thoroughly unimaginative.

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?

Whilst others may be concerned about the disappearance of a cinema from one of the town centre redevelopments, there are other, smaller things that developers would like to remove elsewhere. It seems, if the supporting documents to their planning application are to be believed, that the Outlet Centre has previously been given planning permission for more shop space than their buildings can actually contain. Their proposal to get round this (as opposed to replacing some of the office and other non-retail space) is to remove — or as they put it relocate — the children’s play area.

Erection of a glazed enclosure and removal of existing canopies to provide additional retail area and relocation of the play area.

If you’ve got a spare half hour or so, have a look at their plans, in particular the ones labelled ‘Plan-Play Area Relocation’ and see if you can find where the play area has been relocated to. It is noticeably absent. The drawings do show an anonymous red rectangle on the east side of the centre that might be it, but there is nothing saying so. If it is, then it’s a small fraction of the size of the existing play area.

As an aside, I hope the Outlet Centre’s designers’ ability at building design is much better than their website design, where one has to chase a floating circle around the screen in order to navigate the site. There is an important balance that should be maintained between creativity and practicality. Sadly, it’s one that some architects and designers seem never to learn.

Nine months after originally planned, Westlecott Farmhouse has now been demolished. That leaves Westlecott Farm Cottages (visible in the photograph) and the cottages and farm at South Leaze as the only pre-Wichelstowe buildings left in Swindon’s Front Garden.

I don’t like the idea of 750 houses being built around Coate Water any more than Ms Saunders does. However, I do find some of her reasons for wanting to protect the area from development a bit odd.

The council also has to consider the beautiful views from Liddington Hill and the area of outstanding beauty. These views are equally as important as the views from Coate Water.

Ms Saunders seems to be suffering from an affliction common amongst campaigners: an inability to see existing large developments. For those that haven’t noticed, if one looks from Liddington Hill in the direction of Coate Water, rather prominent in the background is a town called ‘Swindon’. In comparison with that backdrop, another 750 houses are not going to change the view from the hill that much.

The latest planning application for one of the affordable housing blocks in East Wichel includes a revised design for the noise bund (or mound of earth) that is meant to reduce the noise from motorway traffic for residents in the boxes houses of the new development. The new design, in the words of the report supporting the application,

uses a steeper aspect ratio, enabling the crest of the bunding to be moved slightly closer to the M4 motorway.

Of course, in doing so it allows the foot of the bunding to be moved closer to the M4 too, allowing a bit more space to cram more houses in. Fortunately for the residents of Wroughton, they are going to get rather wider (and more attractive) sound protection.