Development at Coate

[Ardiles]

I still can't believe the council have managed to fuck up having Bath University expand in to Swindon. It is one of the top 10 universities in the country and they should have bent over backwards to get them here. It would have been a massive boost to the town but instead the council did their usual.

Not sure a university in the town centre would work either, if it did it would be shit compared to the single campus all singing and dancing option. Again, why take the second best option when we could get something really good.

Anyone who thinks the Coate site won't get developed at some point is in cloud cuckoo land. They only need to get approval once and its game over. I'd have thought it better to let it go through and get everything out of it that you can rather than just block it all the time.

Everyone seems to have a soft spot for Coate and I can only think they haven't been there recently. Unless they've done a major renovation it is falling apart and bordering on being a shit hole.

Agree with your general point: that Coate will inevitably be developed one day.  The development will probably be purely residential with a few amenities thrown in.

But completely disagree with point about the siting of the university.  Even if it is 'all singing all dancing', a university campus at Coate will benefit Swindon about as much as Keele benefits Newcastle-under-Lyme (ie it doesn't.)  Until they start to meaningfully develop the centre of Swindon, it will remain a sh**hole.  There is a huge amount of land that could be developed within a 1 to 1½ radius of the centre of town, so why repeat the mistakes of the last 30 years and push everything to the outskirts again?  Build a university at Coate (or anywhere else that's 4 miles from the centre of town), and 90% of the population would not even know it was there.

[michael]

Anyone know what is happening with that big ski dome thing that was being talked about over at Hawksworth?

That would be mint.

I also think that we should have a concert hall built in the town centre

[pauld]

I still can't believe the council have managed to fuck up having Bath University expand in to Swindon. It is one of the top 10 universities in the country and they should have bent over backwards to get them here. It would have been a massive boost to the town but instead the council did their usual.

Bath University pulled out because the developers' plans did not leave them enough space for a campus, not because of the council. For the 98th time, the proposed development at Coate is not about a university, it's about developers wanting to build a massive housing estate and business park on the land between Coate Water and the hospital (You know, the land the council promised would not be built on when they gave the hospital the go-ahead). The idea of a university is just a sweetener and in the last lot of plans the developers submitted, it was basically "Let us build the massive housing estate/business park now and, erm, we promise to try really hard to rustle up some kind of university from somewhere who might be interested in a mini-campus on the pitiful amount of land left over from the bits we think we can make huge profits out of"

[Arnold.J.Rimmer]

Anyone know what is happening with that big ski dome thing that was being talked about over at Hawksworth?

That would be mint.

I also think that we should have a concert hall built in the town centre

I wouldn't get your hopes up, this is Swindon so probably won't happen.

[jonny72]

Bath University pulled out because the developers' plans did not leave them enough space for a campus, not because of the council. For the 98th time, the proposed development at Coate is not about a university, it's about developers wanting to build a massive housing estate and business park on the land between Coate Water and the hospital (You know, the land the council promised would not be built on when they gave the hospital the go-ahead).

The council could have made it happen and could have kept Bath University involved.

It goes without saying that the university isn't central to the Coate development, but as I said it will happen at some point and they should get everything out of it that they can and in return allow it through. Otherwise the developers will eventually force it through and we'll get fuck all out of it.

[Power to people]

The council are selling off any bit of land they can make money out of, there is a proposal at the moment for them to sell land in Parks for flats, it is only a matter of time unfortunetly until Coate get's built on, I don't think this council will be happy until all green land has been built on.

Unfortunetly not all residents are savvy enough to be able to fight the council.

[pauld]

The council could have made it happen and could have kept Bath University involved.

You're right, they could. But it was a shit deal, so they didn't

[jonny72]

The big problem with all the new housing developments is that by the time residents get involved the damage has been done and its too late to really do anything about it. I'm not sure of the exact figure and time scale but I believe we're looking at something like 35,000 new houses in Swindon over the next 15 years.

By the time the council start zoning land for those new houses its too late for people to do anything about it. Sure you can fight the houses being built in a certain area but at the end of the day if they're not built there they will have to be built somewhere else. The Coate site might have survived this round but it will go one day, it has to.

[flammableBen]

Surely you've also got the problem that there must be quite a few residents who live in fairly new houses on what would have previously been green land? They must feel a bit hypocritical complaining about other new houses going up.

[jonny72]

They must feel a bit hypocritical complaining about other new houses going up.

Similar to what pissed me off about all the Old Town residents complaining about the front garden development. Swindon had expanded outwards in every direction except south past Old Town, none of those residents said a word when all the other developments were happening. But as soon as it affects them they've got a problem with it.

Bottom line is that if you've got a problem with the town where you live expanding exponentially and with green land being built on then Swindon is the wrong place to live. Fuck off to Bath or Bournemouth or something.

[Doore]

none of those residents said a word when all the other developments were happening. But as soon as it affects them they've got a problem with it.

Sad to say but isn't that just human nature?  People rarely complain about an issue when it doesn't affect them.

[pauld]

none of those residents said a word when all the other developments were happening. But as soon as it affects them they've got a problem with it.

How do you know they didn't? Wild, unsubstantiated (and unprovable) assumption. Of course, when people do object to developments that directly affect them, people like you call them NIMBYs. When it doesn't directly affect them, people like you have a go at them because "it's none of their business"

[jonny72]

How do you know they didn't? Wild, unsubstantiated (and unprovable) assumption.

Maybe some of them said something about other developments, but on the whole they didn't give a toss until it was their turn. This was abundantly clear throughout their campaign which ended with them losing in court - I don't recall any other developments ending in a court case which was brought personally (and they got away with not paying the full costs of the case).

I never called them NIMBY's either, self centred tossers, but not NIMBY's. And yes, if it doesn't affect someone it isn't any of their business - but if they were fighting a wider campaign against the further development of Swindon then it obviously would be the business of any resident of Swindon. In the case of the front garden development they weren't fighting against anything other than the front garden development.

I don't give a toss about Swindon expanding. But the people that do need to start taking action long before it gets to the planning permission stage as at that point it is already game over as the houses have to go somewhere.

[walker]

I bet PD will be there.

Where did you get that message from , mate?
i only ask cos Felicity Cobb was my teacher at school!