Tag: squeeze

There’s been a lot of fuss about what the government’s green paper on housing doesn’t say about not building in areas prone to flooding (and it says very little of substance on this because there is no change in policy on this issue). Amongst all this fuss, the comment of the chief executive of the the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, stood out.

Ministers should be applauded for recognising that there’s simply no way we could tell the thousands of key workers and low income families, desperate for a decent home, that we can’t build any more new homes because of concerns about flood plains. After all, much of the country is a flood plain.

That’s gross exaggeration on both counts. If my taxes are going to be used subsidising other peoples’ homes, I’d rather those homes were built in areas where they are not going to be at risk, thank you.

I’m not sure whether the developers of Swindon’s front garden are intending to offer dinghies with their houses, but perhaps they should. In the plans, most of the area in the first photograph below is going to be a lake. The other photographs show what, in the plans, will be the main river access road to West Wichel.

The lake

The main access road

If the chief executive of the New Swindon Company is to be believed, Swindon being the home of one of nine BBC Big Screens will have a miraculous effect on the town’s standing.

Hosting the only screen in the South will propel Swindon’s image to a national level. This new development will start to create that lively bustle that has been absent for so long.

Really? I wasn’t aware of the locations of the eight existing screens. (Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Rotherham and Derby, according to the press release — it seems the New Swindon Company cannot count.) I don’t recall any of those towns having their image propelled anywhere by the presence of am oversized TV. And in what way does people gawping at a big screen create ‘bustle’? Some of the other claims are just as far-fetched.

Wharf Green will also provide Swindon with a focal point for 2012 lead up activities, and events, that are planned once London takes over the mantle of Olympic City

I thought the intention was to use the Olympics to encourage people to participate in sport. It seems the aim in Swindon will be to create a community of full-on couch potatoes.

It seems that, by virtue of submitting comments on Swindon Borough Council’s Central Area Action Plan and Core Strategy, I am now on their Forward Planning Group’s mailing list. Today a letter dropped through my letterbox informing me that they have adopted a supplementary planning document on Backland and Infill Development and are now consulting on another supplementary planning document on Swindon Sustainable Building Design and Construction. Thrilling, no? Not just the letter either, but also copies of the statutory notices for both of the said acts, each printed on a separate piece of A4 paper. Duplex printing is, apparently, an alien concept at the council. As is folding paper to fit it into a smaller envelope, thus ensuring that they (and thus me through my Council tax) have paid for this to be delivered as a Royal Mail large letter, an extra 14p for each of these letters they sent. As I’ve never put pen to paper to the council’s forward planners, only digit to keyboard, the real puzzle is why they did not email all this stuff, a saving of 36p just on postage, of several sheets of paper, and matching my chosen method of communication. Deleting an email is just so much easier than putting all this paper in the recycling box.

Swindon Borough Council: a council for the 20th Century.

Walking along the old railway line from Mannington to Old Town today, I see that preparatory work for the front garden development has now almost reached South Leaze, so the whole length of the site is now being worked on. Most noticeable was the absence of Blackhorse Bridge, demolished early last month. Elsewhere, the main activities seem to be building temporary roads and putting in drainage. We wouldn’t want the occupants of the new houses to get wet feet now, would we?

Blackhorse Bridge in May and… the site of Blackhorse Bridge in July.

This morning I went to the Swindon Gateway Partnership’s display of their new plans for the area to the east of Coate Water. They are a great improvement on the previous plans. That does not make them good. To quote the developers’ consultants.

Sarah Smith, associate director of DPDS, said: “Essentially what’s changed is we have taken on board the local planning inspector’s comments about the views into and out of Coate Water Country Park. Therefore we have looked at moving the university site further south to remove some of the higher buildings out of these views. We have increased the buffer zone to the special site of scientific interest by about 40 per cent.

That’s all very well and is an improvement on their earlier plans. However, in place of the university at the northern end of the site there will now be a residential area… right up close to the northern arm of Coate Water. That’s the part of Coate Water that has the most visitors. There’s no buffer zone there. And at upto 5 storeys tall (according to Ms Smith this morning), even with a wider buffer zone, the university buildings are not going to be hidden out-of-sight. The possibility of imposing lower limits on those university buildings nearest Coate Water was considered but discounted by the developers (or in Ms Smith’s words “It’s in the plans’ environmental statement.”).

The overall impression from the display was of some fairly uncaring developers (they can afford to be — Swindon Borough Council is on their side). Ms Smith’s colleague was like a record stuck in a groove, repeating “it complies with national standards” in response to every concern raised (noise from adjoining main roads; provision of utilities; density of housing; impact on road congestion…). I’m sure that is true, but on its own it does not win many friends.

I thought scepticism of everything that estates agents and housebuilders say was now second nature to most people. Clearly, there are still some exceptions. Of her not-so-nice new home in Okus (or, as the house builders call it, Angel Ridge), resident Nadia Lewis is quoted as saying

These are meant to be prestigious homes.

Since when has a four-bedroom town house in a development of 500 houses on the site of an old hospital been ‘prestigious’? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against her and her neighbours trying to get some bad publicity for the builder, to encourage them to fix the problems with their houses.* I just think it would have helped their cause more if she hadn’t made a fool of herself in the process.
* Any builder that describes Old Town as having a ‘traditional market town ambience’ or life in Swindon as ‘urban living at its best’ deserves a good dose of criticism.

It looks like we are in for an old-fashioned boundary dispute between Swindon and Wiltshire councils. Expect lots of petty politics, with each side saying what a disaster it would be if the other council’s proposition came to pass. In response to Wiltshire’s bid for unitary status, Swindon proposes an expansion of its territory into North Wiltshire, to accommodate the government’s proposed growth plans for the town. There has already been much petty squabbling between county and district councils with associated waste of council-tax-payers’ money (note in particular the opposing conclusions drawn from one MORI survey). We can expect much more.

There is one thing that puzzles me in Councillor Bluh’s comments though.

There are no certain plans to expand into any specific areas at this stage, but obviously it would not be possible to expand to the east because of the boundary with Oxfordshire.

Why is Oxfordshire being treated with such deference? It’s not that long ago (1974) that the Vale of White Horse was part of Berkshire (which itself disappeared as a council in 1998 when its districts gained unitary status), so the boundary can hardly be described as sacrosanct.

Update: Well that was a big fuss about nothing. The proposal got a unanimous ‘no’ at Monday’s council meeting. That’s a rather quick about-turn from Mr Bluh.

Given how unpopular the original plans to concrete over the land surrounding Coate Water were, you’d think that, once the University of Bath decided to abandon their plans for a campus in Swindon, the council would allow the idea to quietly die. Not a at all. Seems they want to go ahead anyway, regardless of whether there’s a university interested. Political genius.

Seems that the might of the developers has been temporarily thwarted given a sideways nudge. Finches and swallows have been found (well, actually more a case of actively sought) nesting in Westlecott Farm (the white building and outbuildings in my earlier photographs). As a consequence the farm cannot be demolished until late August. The joy of the campaigners does seem somewhat sulky though, and their hopes unrealistic.

I’m a realist so understand that the development will go ahead, but all the setbacks might mean that they reconsider the size of it.

Delaying the demolition of one farm is but a minor blip in the path of a 4,500 house development.