Tag: Swindon

If Honda’s spokesman is to be believed, dumping the pound and adopting the euro would make areas of land expand. A couple of days’ ago, Honda’s president was quoted as saying they would only expand their plant in Swindon if Britain joined the euro.

Our intention is to bring operations to full capacity and have no plans to expand, though we may change our minds if Britain were to join the euro.

He even went as far as to describe the original investment in the Swindon factory as a ‘mistake’. Today this was translated into something rather different by Honda’s spokesman Paul Ormond

There is a limit to growth in Swindon, so we are growing into Eastern Europe. The total area is something like 67 acres. We couldn’t physically build any more on there. What Mr Fukui was saying is going forwards we couldn’t do a great deal more in Swindon because of the limitations on the site.

Clearly, joining the euro would make a few extra acres appear on Honda’s factory site.

If the politicians explained this magical land-expanding ability of the euro to the public, maybe people wouldn’t be so sceptical about it.

I’d not noticed until someone pointed it out to me that, in addition to the Central Area Action Plan, there is also a Core Strategy for future development of Swindon currently out for consultation (deadline for comments is Wednesday 23rd May). Apparently, Swindon has green fingers.

A significant feature of past development in Swindon has been the creation and retention of ‘green fingers’ between areas of development. This provides the opportunity for green infrastructure to be enhanced and increased as the town grows.

Slowly but surely, the planning framework is turning into a green skeleton. Next we need some green arms, to join the green fingers to the Central Action Plan’s green spine.

One bit of advice. If you’re thinking of using the online form to send the council your answers to the almost ninety questions that the Core Strategy contains,… don’t. It doesn’t work. The numbering of the questions doesn’t match the numbering in the consultation document and most of your answers will be lost. ’Tis far safer (and easier) to email your comments to the council.

Since last weekend, Swindon has the dubious privilege of being one of the first towns in Britain to have some of its buildings rendered in three dimensions on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth. If you haven’t got a high resolution monitor, it looks rather basic, like a town built of children’ building blocks. Quite why anyone would be interested in looking at the ‘3D’ map when the same website offers detailed ‘2D’ photographic perspective views, with all buildings in perspective, not just the main town centre ones and a select few elsewhere. The only good point is that komadori’s home is one of the few private houses to be shown in kiddy building block 3D.

(Skip through to about half way, to miss the boring Brighton bit.)

For months now, English Heritage have been saying to the developer who owns The Mechanics Institute that they want more details about his plans, and the developer asks, ‘what details do you want?’… And nothing happens. Now empty buildings (especially big empty buildings) do not make money (but they don’t cost much to maintain either), so one would have thought there was a financial incentive on the developer to make a sensible effort to resolve this impasse. Similarly, as the building is on English Heritage’s Buildings at Risk Register, one would think they would be eager to resolve the issue too. Apparently not. The developer’s new proposal to demolish part of the building seems a very blunt approach to trying to re-start dialogue. Might not use of a telephone be more effective and easier? There’s no suggestion from either side that this has been tried in the intervening months. As the saying goes, an Englishman’s home is his castle. It shouldn’t be his pawn. Still, if my earlier suggestion were correct, demolition might yet be the most effective route to restoration.

Only a little over a month since I last passed this way, and a tarmacked road now cuts across half of the Swindon front garden. No sign of new bricks on mortar yet though.

I’ve been reading through the latest version of Swindon Borough Council’s Central Area Action Plan which is now out for consultation. It’s nice to see that, as hoped for, the Green Spine now has a bit more body to it, looking a little like a headless running stickman (though I think I detect a green football and a green sombrero in there too).

The plan includes some masterpieces of thoughtful insight. An observation on page 27 is the epitome of this erudition.

[Crime] hotspots remain and concerns about crime and anti-social behaviour are still evident in Central Swindon, and in particular in the Bridge Street and Fleet Street Area. In this area, the peak times for violent offences, is in the evenings and at weekends, which suggests a strong link with alcohol misuse.

Only suggests? Move on to page 65.

The dominance of drinking establishments in the Fleet Street area has by a large margin given rise to more crime in the area than at any other location in Swindon.

Aah… a little bit of realism at last. More seriously, this unclear thinking goes deeper than just presenting the obvious as thoughtful observations. When considering the not-so-obvious, some of the statements are, with a little thought, just plain wrong. Move on to page 94.

A significant proportion of these private rented properties are Houses in Multiple Occupancy (HMOs). This high proportion of private rented accommodation is to a large extent a by-product of the exodus of families from Central Swindon.

To confuse ‘cause and effect’ with ‘supply and demand’ is a serious mistake in a document whose prime purpose is to regulate the supply of property over the next twenty years.

After a good night’s sleep (and a not so good day at work), time to reflect on the outcome of the election. In Central Ward the result was a win for Derique Montaut (47%) with Karen Leakey in second (29%), Steve Pipe third (13%) and the other two less than 10% each.

So a negative campaign won? Actually, I don’t think so. This ward is traditional red nest territory, but not so strong that a good local candidate could not come close, very close, as happened for one blue egg in 2004. But no matter how strong a candidate is, if incumbent councillors from the same nest seem to have no interest in their ward, it will be a struggle to break through. (The two incumbent blue nest councillors were both defectees from other nests.)

There is a monthly free news sheet, Central Outlook, distributed throughout inner Swindon. In it, all the councillors of Central, Gorse Hill & Pinehurst, Eastcott and Western Ward have column space, as do the two Swindon MPs. All use the space… except for the blue nest councillors for Central. Unlike their red nest counterpart, their piece has been noticeably lacking since one of them chose to seek re-election elsewhere. Visibility for councillors’ activities is generally low, so opportunities like this to address one’s electors should be used. For the last six months the answer to the question ‘What are the blue nest councillors in this ward doing for us?’ has been an echoing silence.

Seems I was wrong about electronic voting speeding the count. The ballots papers had all been counted for Central ward half-an-hour ago. It’s the electronic votes that are delaying the result. The online vote checking service (by which I should be able to check receipt of my vote) isn’t working either: ‘The receipt cannot be generated yet as not enough data is available.’ The wonders of modern technology…. If it’s not announced soon I’m likely to fall asleep before the declaration.

With electronic voting having been taking place since last Thursday, leaving it until the afternoon of the (final) polling day to distribute your only leaflet is a little bit too late.
It’s better than nothing though. I’ve received not a single chirp from the green nest (perhaps trying to be more ‘environmentally friendly’ than is good for their electoral prospects) nor the yellow nest (tho’ one councillor from the yellow nest told me I should have received four leaflets by last weekend).

With electronic voting at the polling stations today too, the count should be quick. Unfortunately, although conventional stubby-black-pencil-on-ballot-paper voting was also meant to be available, some polling stations weren’t ready for this when they openned.

Apparently, Swindon was under a rather nasty cloud this evening.

THE sky above the town was filled with giant clouds of toxic smoke after a pile of 8,000 tyres caught light.
Twenty-two firemen tackled the giant pyre, which started burning around 7pm tonight at Lower Burytown Farm between Blunsdon and Highworth….
Clouds were visible for miles on the Swindon skyline, prompting onlookers to visit from as far away as Penhill.

News to me. At that time (7.40 pm to 8 pm, to be precise) I was on my way to a town-centre pub, facing towards Blunsdon as I walked, under a clear sky.

Update, 3 May 2007: The Adver has now put ‘dramatic pictures’ on its website. It’s clearly a big fire but does it show ‘the sky above the town was filled with giant clouds’? No. One big black cloud over open fields, that’s all.