Bye-bye Regents St College.

[walcot red]

Just as with the re-devlopment of the county ground I won't be happy until the builders are there building stuff, otherwise its another one of those sites with white fencing around it, take the old post office site, and the old police station at whale bridge.

[jayohaitchenn]

Prezzo is one of the better chain restuarants too.

[Ardiles]

I agree.  I don't think anyone should be too sniffy about chains either...especially if the chains in question are restaurants like Prezzo or La Tasca.

Just as with the re-devlopment of the county ground I won't be happy until the builders are there building stuff, otherwise its another one of those sites with white fencing around it, take the old post office site, and the old police station at whale bridge.

Agree with that as well.  I've never quite understood how Swindon went from the town, 25 or 30 years ago, where you could blink and there was something new going up or being built...to now, where plans get talked about for years - or decades even - before anything actually happens.  Mechanics Institute, anyone?  Much as I love the Glue Pot, I hate looking across the road when I'm there.

[Bob's Orange]

http://www.ashfieldland.co.uk/project/regent-circus-swindon/

That's the plans for the new site

Where are the fat, slobbish single mothers pushing their horrible kids in those pictures?

[Barry Scott]

I've never quite understood how Swindon went from the town, 25 or 30 years ago, where you could blink and there was something new going up or being built...to now, where plans get talked about for years - or decades even - before anything actually happens.  Mechanics Institute, anyone?  Much as I love the Glue Pot, I hate looking across the road when I'm there.

3 letters to describe the utter mindlessness that is the root of it, S.B.C.

Incompetency personified.

[Ardiles]

The place needs a modern day David Murray John, maybe?  Someone who can take charge and actually drive projects through to their conclusion.  In the time that people have been discussing the redevelopment of the town centre, the rejuvenation of the Mechanics and the Locarno, the linking of the old railway works to the centre of town through the Railway Village, other places - notably Reading, Bristol etc. - have actually built their projects.  Result: Swindon is now so far behind these places it isn't even on the same page any more...which makes the task of persuading developers there is money to be made in Swindon even more difficult.

They've got to break the cycle.  Do something bold and bring people back.  In a town of 200,000 odd, it shouldn't be hard.  Should it?

[tans]

Fucking hell, wes wont know what to do with himself if they are building a nandos

[Samdy Gray]

We know SBC don't work that way though. Development in northern Swindon took off 10 to 15 years ago with Abbey Meads/Priory Vale.

Yesterday SBC realise they hadn't built the road infrastructure to cope with the development and are now going cap-in-hand to central government for £100m.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9862899.print/

Note from the article that SBC have been happy to squander the developer cash whilst they did naff all about the transport network.

[Ardiles]

We know SBC don't work that way though. Development in northern Swindon took off 10 to 15 years ago with Abbey Meads/Priory Vale.

Yesterday SBC realise they hadn't built the road infrastructure to cope with the development and are now going cap-in-hand to central government for £100m.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9862899.print/

Note from the article that SBC have been happy to squander the developer cash whilst they did naff all about the transport network.

At last!!

Jeez.  They've been talking about building this road for 20 years!  You can even see it clearly marked out on planning documents from the late 1980s/early 1990s when North Swindon was first being talked about.  The key point here is that construction of the road should have been a pre-condition.  The houses should never have gone up in the first place until funding for the transport infrastructure was in place.

Mead Way not fit for the purposes it currently now serves?!  No shit!  Hand the man a medal.  It's good that the link is now being discussed seriously, but it's disgraceful that it's taken 20 years for it to come to the fore like this...and only then because the Council is having to react to the situation (rather than predict it in advance, as they should have done).

I don't know what that Department does all day at SBC - but this isn't Transport Planning, it's Transport Reacting.  Which shouldn't require any planning qualifications or a decent salary, in my book.

[Coca Fola]

Where are the fat, slobbish single mothers pushing their horrible kids in those pictures?

[Reg Smeeton]

 Hardly a surprise is it...the developers have SBC by the short and curlies. They get their massive profits, while SBC has to fund the infrastructure and associated projects...this may have seemed a decent enough plan, before the banker's recession caused a return to mass unemployment.

 The problem this has created is that SBC is hit by the double whammy of having to fund many of the occupants of the new build through housing benefit, while simultaneously trying to fund infrastructure. 

 It doesn't take a genius to work out this model is unsustainable during a recession...it's unlikely the policy will change any time soon, as evidenced by the recent local elections, so the town will continue to slide, until it reaches  breaking point.  Not altogether sure what that might look like, but don't think it will be pretty.

[Mexicano Rojo]

Yes Yeo it was me that put on the house of love there, some good memories of the top floor, nus office, squandered shitloads on coach trips to London to see gigs, plus we seemed permanently on strike

[Sippo]

There are empty retail units in the town centre, they won't fill all of those proposed.

[Power to people]

The town centre as a whole is a dump with the amount of empty shops - I was speaking to someone in work the other week who had agreed to transfer to swindon from somewhere in london way, she said she went around the town and started having second thoughts seeing the state of it but then went out north swindon and it was totally different.

As said SBC are to blame they have been bleating on for years about the town centre redev but nothing has been done until now you start to see some diggers around.

I do fear though that once this is built the cost of parking in the town will be put up especially in the new car park they are building and that will put people of going into the town for these new bar's and restaurants.

[Ardiles]

It's a text book case of what happens when you fail to invest.  Give or take a lick of paint, the odd road closure and some new paving here or there, it's essentially the same place as it was in 1985.  So people have voted with their feet.  There's a lot of money being made in & around Swindon...but more & more of it is getting spent in Bath, Bristol and even Reading.  At least there are signs now that something could happen...at last.  Not before time.  Hope it's worth the wait.