I've never understood the Swindon apathy thing. The town has been growing fast since the 1800s as a result of incomers choosing to better themselves and move there for work. How is it that their descendents have become so disinterested in the things that affect their own lives?
If the population as a whole took a little more interest in local issues, I'm quite sure that Coate and the Front Garden would be somewhat safer than they are from developers, the Mechanics Institute would not be crumbling and the town centre wouldn't be such a dump.
As Ken Livingstone once said, "if democracy changed anything they'd ban it" Although there is an element of apathy, for many I'd call it stoical resignation.
Take for example, the FG....a long and determined campaign was fought to keep out the developers, this went through all the legal processes available...it is by doing that you come up against how the system is stacked in the favour of corporate finance. All avenues were explored short of direct action. Now if that is apathy then yes, but to put yourself in the position where your whole life can be ruined is asking a lot.
As to Leefer's point about the railways, it had been evident for some years that Swindon was being run down, in preparation for eventual closure...there were efforts made by the usual coalitions of trade unions and left wing activists, to fight the closure, but many of those inside, had no stomach for a fight, preferring to take the sizeable redundancy packets on offer, which for many came from lengthy service.
SBC, were persuaded to insist that the site would have to be developed for industry, to this end it was sold to a local consortium, who claimed this would be undertaken.
Once the site had been empty for some years it became obvious no industrial use would be forthcoming, the locals flogged it on to a developer for a fat profit, and we ended up with houses and shops, with a couple of distribution warehouses.
