Tag: Swindon

I don’t wish to denigrate the efforts of the Swindon Real Nappy Network. (I’ll quite happily denigrate the Adver’s ability to get a web address right though: swindonrealnappynetwork.org.uk, as published in the Adver, won’t get you very far.) I’m old enough to have been in nappies before disposable nappies were commonplace, and my parents were sufficiently thrifty that once my sibling and I were beyond the nappy-wearing phase they cut them up and re-used them as face flannels. So I have nothing against their objectives. I’m just rather puzzled by the logic — if you can call it that — behind their support for the proposals from Swindon Borough Council and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for a publicly funded nappy laundry service.

Disposable nappies are filled with a chemical gel that draws the moisture in to it. But it also draws all the good moisture away. At a time when parents are so keen on organic food for their children it seems madness to be putting chemicals so close to a very sensitive area.

Good moisture? Do they think there’s good water and evil water? And if they’re so concerned about the use of chemicals, does that mean that this laundry service will not use any chemicals? No detergents, no disinfectants, just nappies returned after a thorough rinse in pure water? I suspect not.

On my daily walk to work I have noticed that the direction signs at the subway entrance to the old railway works have been replace. Swindon Borough Council has now provided an explanation.

The new signs – five large map ‘monoliths’ and 19 fingerposts – will replace the existing 31 fingerpost signs which were installed in 1995…. At the moment the layout of the town can be confusing and the new signage is intended to help people find their way around in a safe and predictable way.

Presumably not quite as confusing as it was in 1995 though, as there are now seven places that had direction signs but don’t anymore.

Today I have visited Swindon’s new Central Library. Like some others, I was rather underwhelmed. The building is impressive and is very light and airy inside. But whilst the new building may be a fine permanent replacement for the not-as-temporary-as-they-should-have-been portable cabins it replaced, inside it all looks rather temporary.

That lightness and airiness are mainly a result of the bookcases all being low-height, light-weight and on casters. It gives the impression that someone might wheel them all away at any moment. It was quite quiet and library-like… except for some of the librarians who clearly didn’t feel the need to mimic the hushed tones of their customers. Finally, the local history collection within the reference section was very good. ’Tis a pity that there’s almost nowhere to sit and read from said collection.

Swindon’s new Central Library is well worth a visit, but not as well worth a visit as it could have been.

As their slogan says, ‘Every little helps’ but in the case of Tesco’s plans for wind generation at their Ocotal Way store in Swindon, it’s very little indeed. They like to puff that the output from the turbines is impressive.

This is part of our commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of our existing stores by 50 per cent by 2010…. Each turbine generates 6KW, enough to power four households, and reduce carbon emissions by 24 tonnes a year.

The reality is less impressive. Despite the spin, their spokeswoman seems not to know what impact these turbines will have.

What proportion of the Swindon store’s power could be generated by the turbines would depend on the size of the store.

Well, yes, but the proportion will always be virtually nothing. To get this in perspective, as the supporting statement to Tesco’s planning application says,

Given the intermittent nature of the wind it is generally assumed that wind turbines in the UK will have a capacity factor around 30%, meaning that they will, on average, generate power equivalent to around a third of this ‘Installed Capacity’.

So that’s just 2 kW per turbine… enough to boil a kettle. Three kettles’ worth of power is insignificant in comparison to the energy consumed by a large superstore. The supporting statement goes on.

A 6 kW turbine will, at its maximum, generate sufficient electrical power to supply the equivalent of around four average UK households, and would prevent, on an annual basis, the emission to atmosphere of 13.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

Only 13.6 tonnes? What happened to the other 10.4 tonnes that Tesco’s spokeswoman was talking of? It seems that Tesco’s press statements have even more puff than their pastry!

The real purpose of these turbines is demonstrated by their positions. As the plans show, the turbines are located around the store for maximum visibility, with one of them, contrary to the supporting statement, even being shielded from the prevailing wind by the store itself. This planning application has everything to do with Tesco trying to promote an image of being environmentally friendly and very little to do with serious renewable energy generation.

I’ve been looking at the latest planning application for a Jurys Inn in Swindon. You’d have thought that, having revised their original planning application a couple of times, they would have tired of the habit, but no. So now they are back with a new application, very similar to the first, but with 20% less restaurant space and five fewer flats apartments.

Externally, there seems to be little difference between the two applications: it remains a ten storey slab of bricks and painted concrete. However, reading through the garbage that accompanies the application (and no, I’m not just talking about the refuse disposal strategy) I did notice that whoever drew some of the illustrations in the design statement has some problems with their balance. If this bit of developer-puffery is to be believed,

The scale of buildings rises towards the town centre

and they’ve drawn a pretty picture to show how their slab will fit in at the shorter end of this rising line…. It’s a tad unfortunate that they’ve only managed to produce this rising line by having it cut through the top storeys of the proposed hotel whilst passing several floors above the buildings closer to the centre. Anyone sober with a steady hand would have drawn a line that was level.

As an aside, I’m not quite sure what a ‘superior budget hotel’ is, nor what is ‘budget’ about paying £70 for a room, but that is what Jurys Inns claim to be. Just trying to bump up their search engine ratings in these economically troubled times, methinks.

Once again, one story has outshone all others in Swindon this week: Swindon Borough Council’s decision to withdraw from the Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership. In amongst all the political ya-boo politics, it’s been noticeable that both Mr Wills and Ms Snelgrove have moderated the tone of their views, though only a little.

As it became that the council was not going to back down, that there was more to this than just political grandstanding, in addition to stating their opposition, they added something else. That it was up to the council to show that its new plans for road safety would be more effective than staying in the camera partnership. Which is what the discussion should have been about all along. And with Swindon having just three fixed speed cameras for its contribution of over £300,000, will that really be so difficult to achieve?

I suppose that as they’ve got rid of all their weekend presenters, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Brunel FM’s weekend output has been rather below par. For much of yesterday morning it was playing their emergency recording — which kicks in after about twenty seconds of silence — between the hourly news bulletins. The recording is a little dated: Haddaway can’t have had so much airplay for a long time!

At some point towards the end of the morning presumably someone corrected it, and a more up-to-date set of tracks was programmed, with adverts too Even then it wasn’t right, with the emergency recording kicking in at ten-to each hour. There was worse to come. Today has been nothing but the emergency recording, which lasts a little over an hour, on permanent loop. No news bulletins and no adverts either, which can’t be helping the station’s financial problems. Just to rub in the problem, the jingles are highlighting a programming policy from several years ago.

Brunel FM. Home of the no replay weekday…. We never play a song more than once during your workday.

They’ve certainly made up for that this weekend.

I’ve previously written about the Swindon Local Involvement Network (though the information on the council’s website is more informative than their new website). Swindon LINk is now progressing… to a fully fledged bureaucracy. The administrators appointed by the council to support the group are currently trying to recruit a ‘Start Up Group’. The principle task of the group during its six-month existence? To set-up another group.

Tasks of the Start up Group

• To plan the setting up of the LINk Steering group
• To agree a development and engagement policy for LINk membership
• To develop and agree a work program for the LINk
• To develop a terms of reference for the theme based working groups
• To agree expense policy
• To develop the relevant policies for Swindon LINk
• To agree a complaints policy

All that for a group with a mailing list of just over forty people. And note the mention not just of a steering group, but of talking shops working groups too. This little group seems set on creating a web of committees more akin to a government department than to small players in the provision of local health services.

If they really want to match their name and involve local people, rather less talk and more action would be a better approach: skip the Start Up Group and get straight to work.

I’ve been to Pom’s Thai Restaurant in Old Town a few times now, but this was my first visit for several years and my first time at midday. The cooking at Pom’s is refreshingly light, by which I don’t mean that the food is insubstantial, but that the greasiness experienced with the fried dishes at many oriental restaurants is absent. Another feature of their lunchtime menu is that each main course is offered with a choice of chicken, pork, beef, prawns or vegetables, giving vegetarians a wide choice. With hindsight, I’d have gone for one of their ‘spicy’ dishes, as the ‘mild’ dish that I chose was so mild as to have no hint of spice at all. Nonetheless, as stir-fried noodle dishes go, it was nicely done, with the thin slices of beef well-cooked without being over done as is often the case with similar dishes at other restaurants. At £9.99 for a starter plus main course, it was certainly good value for money.

There is one other feature of meals at Pom’s and that is the great effort they put into carving their vegetables. This wasn’t so much in evidence at lunchtime as it is in the evening, as a comparison between my photograph and that of the same dish from their website shows, but still adds some interest to what are quite large chunks of raw vegetable.

Good news for the elderly in North Swindon: Virgin Healthcare have abandoned plans to run a health centre in Swindon. It seems that Virgin were mainly interested in practices with large numbers of ‘young male professionals’* in their catchment, which is why they were interested in Taw Hill Practice. With their chief executive leaving too*, it looks like it’ll be quite some time before garish red starts appearing outside doctors’ surgeries.

* Links to a site that only allows ‘deep linking’ after the first visit.