Swindon advertiser article

[Batch]

..the planners are going to have to notice this.

Already noticed and ignored.

[Reg Smeeton]

Blagrove isn't great, I'll agree, in that it's still fairly remote from the town centre.  But the road links are there at least (I'm thinking via Great Western Way all the way round rather than Wootton Bassett Road).  And I also did wonder whether it would have been possible to build a halt style station on the Great Western mainline to serve as a stadium shuttle on match days and a Park & Ride facility for traffic coming in off at Junction 16.  Probably pie in the sky though, I'll admit.

Shaw Tip really bothered me though.  The routes in to town (and the motorway) would have been via the hideously congested Mead Way.  But it was the complete absence of any matchday infrastructure that fans at the County Ground take for granted that bothered me most.  Where are the pubs, the chip shops, the bookmakers, the train station?  In most cases, about 3 miles away in town or even further away in Old Town.  I suppose Shaw Ridge would have been just about walkable, but that's about it.

Shaw Tip is easily accessible from Rodbourne by foot and bike...where there is a fine array of facilities.

[yeo]

Shaw Forest is coming along nicely,even the bits where stuff wouldn't grow is now green.Its better than a crappy football ground anyway

[Talk Talk]

Shaw Forest is coming along nicely,even the bits where stuff wouldn't grow is now green.Its better than a crappy football ground anyway

I love you Jamie 

[deltaincline]

I'm undecided on the Shaw Tip issue; Diamandis and his board of phoney directors wanted it to happen (remember the shitty little pink and green cardboard mock up they had made up, thinking that their cunning plan to fund it / line their own pockets / pay Seton and his chinless wanker of a son back by building thousands of houses on the cricket pitch?) so I'm glad it got canned.

On the other hand, I'd have loved it if Talk Talk and his urine-drinking band of Nimby yogurt-knitters had had it stuck to them by the planners. Community forest my fucking arse. The place is teeming with imported wildlife, unemployed mongs and doggers.

Hopefully everyone will see sense in the end, and the County Ground will be redeveloped and named after Nigel Eavis and the Trust will be successful in persuading the self-interested cunts in Euclid Street to protect the place from get-rich-quick businessmen - past, present and future.

[TheMajorSTFC]

Interesting article - was just a young teen when the Shaw Tip site came up for discussion so nice to understand things a bit more now. Didn't realise the club had applied to build a new stand back in 94 on the stratton bank. Would like to think our ground would be redeveloped, but can't see it happening for some time!

[Shaw Rosso]

Where are the pubs, the chip shops, the bookmakers, the train station?  In most cases, about 3 miles away in town or even further away in Old Town.

There is a chip shop, Chinese, Indian, Bookies, large pub and The redeveloped Chinese Experience within a 5 minute walk from where the Shaw site was planned for, and not forgetting a magnificent kebab van even closer. I remember the nimbys of Shaw, Sparcells and Peatmoor marching down Mead Way on a day we took 3000 to QPR. Councillor Nick Martin promised to lay down in front of the bulldozers if Swindon Town were given permission to build at Shaw Tip, although he never seemed to raise any objections or concerns with Fiat, Vauxhall and Nissan filling the place out with endless car showrooms. I feel Mr Martin and his other Shaw and Nine Elms Councillors didn't fancy the STFC problem on their very greasy hands, simply as there was nothing in it for them.

Granted, it probably wasn't the best location, simply down to transport links

[chalkies_shorts]

Councillor Nick Martin promised to lay down in front of the bulldozers if Swindon Town were given permission to build at Shaw Tip,

That really was an opportunity wasted

[Cookie]

Nick Martin is a cunt of the highest order but then he's a tory and it comes with the territory.

Shaw Tip was wrong purely for the fact that old landfill site is rank, all sorts of horrible leachate pours out of there on a daily basis and it's best left to be managed correctly rather than having anything built on it. The land is worthless and as such a public open space is best for it.

[Sippo]

The ground should be built by Coate just to piss PaulD off.

[Abrahammer]

Community Forest, WTF is that, a fancy name for a regular Forest? As soon as you see terms like "environmentalist" and "friends of the earth" you know there is a reasonable chance the people involved are complete loons.

Shaw Tip, havent a clue where that is but im against any form of relocation.  Redevelopment of CG or nothing for me, location is absolutely perfect.

[pauld]

Ha ha very funny Sippo. You can build what you like at Coate now, it's fucked. We're about to get the 900-house housing estate the council promised wouldn't be built without the university it was supposed to be the enabling development for. And what happened? No university, still get the shit housing estate that will end up half-built like the Northern Development, the Front Garden etc.

It's highly pertinent to this thread though because the same councillor "brokered" both deals. Cllr Mike Bawden, does a lot of "brokering", and strangely the supposed beneficiaries rarely do well out of it, although he always seems to come up smelling of roses.

No matter, because on this, it was a stupid idea, the wrong location and although the club did get shafted by Bawden et al, they were stupid and naive to just take his word on it and do no research whatever before going public. Jumped the gun due to overexcitement at the sound of ringing cash tills. Good job it didn't go ahead though or, as others have said, we'd now have our very own Kassam.

As we argued at the time, and subsequently, by far the best location for the club is right where it is now. At the County Ground, just off the edge of the town centre, excellent transport links and facilities, if redeveloped right can act as a gateway to the town centre and the Club and the community can both benefit each other. The way it's supposed to be.

[4D]

CG first.
Pauld's garden second 

[pauld]

CG first.
Pauld's garden second 

My garden shed,
is bigger than this
My garden shed
is bigger than this

[Talk Talk]

Nearly ten years ago. Jeez, how time flies.

As we argued at the time, and subsequently, by far the best location for the club is right where it is now.

Hmmm. Not quite Mr Davies. At the time of the furore, TrustSTFC were very much in favour of Shaw. I remember the Trust meeting where I upset Mark Devlin and the vote on supporting the move to Shaw was carried.

Your comments after the council motion blocking the development:

Paul Davies of the Swindon Town FC supporters trust, or TrustSTFC, said he was very disappointed that the council vote had effectively blocked the submission of a formal planning application. "The club were preparing revised plans in the light of public consultations which it should have been given the right to show, and been dealt with through the planning process.

http://archive.swindonlink.com/news2004/07/forest_victory_wave.html"

Quite right about the two faced council wankers though:

"I was surprised how some councillors who have been keen to support the club in the past have suddenly donned green clothing."

And so that did lead onto thoughts of redeveloping the CG:

"Many fans would like to see the County Ground redeveloped, but the opportunity to create new income streams would be difficult there. We, the fans, need to go back to the council and say, if not Shaw, where now?"

...and then the work started on firming that up and hilariously here is PD featured in a Tory blog:

http://www.oldtownandlawnintouch.com/news/216/