Tag: Swindon

Thamesdown Transport has published changes* to its timetables. Noticeable amongst the changes are the re-routing of service 15 away from St Andrews Ridge to serve the newer developments of Priory Vale (replacing the developer-supported service 18 which will be much reduced) and the first developments in the Front Garden, where again there is developer support*. The reason for withdrawing a frequent (every 15 minutes) service from St Andrews Ridge and replacing it with an hourly one? Low usage. I wonder where service 15 will go next, once the next set of developer subsidies have run out.

* Links are to pdf documents.

As I cannot find them elsewhere on the internet, here are the rules for who won’t get a Swindon Borough Council wheelie bin, taken from an article in Central Outlook by the Western Ward councillors.

A wheelie bin will provided for each household except if:

1. the wheelie bin would need to be manœuvred up or down a number of steps;
2. there is no storage space available for the bin without it being taken through a dwelling;
3. the property is a flat where there is no suitable storage area for a wheelie bin;
4. the front garden of the dwelling is too small to accommodate a wheelie bin and there is no alternative access;
5. the visual appearance of the bin would detract from the street scene (in conservation areas and designated town gateways only);
6. there is not a safe location where the bin can be left for collection because of steeply sloping street or other reason;
7. on-road parking or other reasons would result in wheelie bin collection being an unacceptable obstruction to the highway.

Exactly how many steps they mean by ‘a number’ is not stated. This and the ‘other reasons’ will be determined by the men from the council.

Apparently, Swindon Borough Council is being overwhelmed by universities interested in opening a campus in the town.

Council leader Rod Bluh, said he could not reveal the identities of the universities as talks were ongoing but that he remained optimistic a deal could be struck. He said: “We have spoken to one or two universities, but investment is far from certain at this stage.”

Wow! So many! I’m impressed!

“This is a great example of cross party politics working at its best. I have already been working closely with Michael Wills on this and Ann Snelgrove is also concerned about exactly the same issues,” said Coun Bluh. Speaking in Parliament on Friday, South Swindon MP Mrs Snelgrove said she was concerned about the delay.

If this is cross party politics at its best, I hope we never see it at its worst.

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.

So I exaggerate a little: Swindon is neither sunny (as I write, ’tis raining outside) nor by the sea; but my exaggeration is only slightly more than that of Anna Mansell of The Adver.

SWINDON may be a somewhat land-locked town, but residents will soon be able to bask on a beautiful beach…. A sweeping bend will be created on the river at Rivermead, and the beach will be installed giving visitors a place to sit and enjoy the scene and animal life sights.

I don’t think ‘basking’ is quite what the Swindon Water for Wildlife River Ray restoration project has in mind, as becomes clear later in the article.

This big sweeping bend will provide a shallow, graded gravel beach which will provide a community focus in the area where people can come and enjoy the river, sit and contemplate, or dip their dogs.

No hint of basking there. More a case of taking cover as a flotilla of soggy dogs shake themselves dry.

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.

In public life, the point often made is that it is not enough to abide by the appropriate standards, but one also has to be seen to abide by those standards; it is not enough not to commit any misdemeanours, one must also avoid the perception that one might have committed a misdemeanour. Regardless of what may be the outcome of Councillor Glaholm’s recent arrest, that perception of the highest standards being maintained has gone. (Some might say it went when he was arrested whilst mayor in 1994.) To have such a person chairing Swindon Borough Council’s Scrutiny Committee, especially when the council has only recently changed its constitution to allow him to do so, looks distinctly tawdry.

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.