komadori's green corner

Replacing the New Swindon Company

2009-12-06T11:14:00.000Z

With all the fuss and angst over Swindon Borough Council’s budget plans for next financial year, another item on this Wednesday’s council cabinet meeting agenda has been overlooked.

The council executive’s proposals for replacing the New Swindon Company is damning with its mild praise. First, the mild praise.

Since the company’s formation TNSC has helped to stimulate regeneration and investment in Swindon’s central area. TNSC has put together exciting development packages that have stimulated considerable interest in Swindon’s regeneration plans. The company’s most notable success has been in attracting Muse as the developer for the Union Square scheme.

Claiming success before anything has conrete has happened is premature, to say the least. Even if this could be claimed as a success, ‘only’ is a more accurate term than ‘most notable’. One odd thing is that the proposals say funding — if only for the coming year — is unchanged.

Recognising the current economic challenges and the importance of an effective response, SBC aims to continue with its existing level of funding of £250k per annum plus the financing of the transferred economic development team and related project budgets.

Yet the budget proposals show a reduction of £147k. With contradictions like that, it’s no wonder that the council’s finances are in a bad way.

The reasons given for replacing the company read as a thinly-veiled catalogue of failure.

An opportunity to engage with private investors in a way not seen before

So the New Swindon Company failed in attracting private investors….

Deployment of limited resources for maximum impact and for best value

And wasted our money….

The requirement for town centre regeneration to link in a more integrated way with plans for the rest of the Borough to ensure Swindon’s existing communities benefit from regeneration and growth

And ignored the communities it was meant to benefit. And the replacement, borough-wide company, how will that engage with the community? Apparently, not all. The council’s vision for the new company is for it to be the poodle of the council, seemingly with no direct involvement with the community at all.

Turning out the lights

2009-12-04T23:05:00.003Z

The recommendation in Swindon Borough Council’s budget proposals for next financial year to turn some street lights off at night has grabbed a few headlines. As I’ve mentioned before, turning off street lights is nothing new; it’s how things used to be. What is new is the amount it costs to turn the lights off. From the council’s figures, simply switching off — permanently — 481 street lights in rural areas is relatively cheap: a one-off cost of £5000 to save £11,000 per year. But putting a timer on street lights in residential areas to turn them off in the middle of the night will cost almost £½M — £450k to be more precise — and will take six years for the savings to recover that cost.

With the council spending almost £½M on turning out the lights and almost another £½M on borough-wide wireless internet, one has to wonder just how much bigger than £12M the hole in the council’s budget would have to be before its cabinet members practice the fiscal rigour that some of them are so fond of preaching to others.

A bridge too far: an essay in little boxes part 24

2009-11-29T20:22:00.005Z

Now I appreciate that both the planning and bridge building processes can be slow and lengthy, especially judging by how long it has taken for Blackhorse Bridge to be reconstructed. Housing development at the moment is even slower. House building on Swindon’s front garden has slowed so much recently — with little likelihood of it picking-up in the immediate future — that the developers are accepting a financial prop from the state. In those circumstances, the recent outline planning application by Arup to build a bridge over the railway line at Southleaze seems a little premature.

Outline application for the construction of a footbridge over the railway line to facilitate pedestrian access between Wichelstowe and housing/ employment areas to the west of Swindon.

The nearest employment areas in West Swindon are two miles from the westernmost extremity of East Wichel. I’m fully in favour of encouraging a healthy commute, but I suspect it will be many years before this bridge earns its keep. In the intervening period, all it’s likely to do is open up Southleaze to further vandalism.

Missed connections

2009-11-27T23:45:00.003Z

Swindon Borough Council’s Connecting People Connecting Places programme — CP2 for short — appears to have a blog. I say ‘appears’ because the week old Connecting Swindon blog has received no publicity and is devoid of links from official sources. The only link I can find is that the Swindon Borough Council twitter account follows the Connecting Swindon blog’s twitter feed. With that level of publicity the blog is, for the moment, largely speaking to nobody.

Lack of publicity is not the only weak point of the Connecting Swindon blog. The latest posting is on events in the Town Centre cluster.

We will be continuing this form of local engagement over the next couple of weeks in the Eastcott area with an event at Groundwell Rd on Tuesday 10th November and in the central ward area later in the evening in the Manchester Road area followed by an event on Farringdon Road on Friday 13th November in the afternoon.

The next couple of weeks? They must be fans of time travel, as that was posted on 26th November. And this is the only publicity these events have received: they are not even mentioned on the cluster’s official page.

With poor publicity like this, one could be forgiven for thinking that the council does not really want to know the opinions of the community. If you read the job description for a cluster lead you may well be convinced that is so. The ‘people’ barely get a mention.

Work hand in hand with ward members to establish the framework for neighbourhood area forums including governance, membership and forward agendas.

So that’s zero community involvement in setting the local agenda.

The overall strategic vision and priorities are set by the local authorities and partners through the Community Strategy and the Local Area Agreement and other plans such as the Children and Young People’s Plan. The Neighbourhood Area Agreement will have a range of themes cascaded from those two documents, that the area forum will monitor and explore to achieve local community priorities.

Welcome to top-down planning. Far from being a meaningful conversation, CP2 appears to be a monologue.

Annie fails to see crimes

2009-11-24T07:50:00.002Z

It seems that the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is so eager to rubbish the priorities of Swindon Borough Council that she hasn’t even bothered to read what their priorities are. According to Ms Snelgrove the council isn’t concerned about crime and anti-social behaviour.

I am appalled that the Council do not think anti-social behaviour and local crime are priorities in Swindon.

She even provides a link to the council’s priorities.

The Council sets its priorities under the Local Area Agreement (www.swindon.gov.uk/yourcouncil-laa) but crime and anti-social behaviour are not even mentioned.

Follow that link. You’ll find, as the sixth of six priorities in the current Local Area Agreement the following.

A place where the resident population can have real influence to develop a sense of community and belonging, and where reducing crimes makes them feel safe.

If Ms Snelgrove thinks that’s not even mentioning crime, she really should go back to school and take some English language lessons.

Update 23:09. I see that Ms Snelgrove has now issued an updated version claiming criteria that were used to dish out this money, though this wasn’t mentioned in the government press release.

Areas that received funding are those that either chose to include ASB as one of their Local Area Agreement priorities or were one of the areas chosen by the Home Office as having high levels of ASB.

So she’s complaining that the council didn’t make a priority out of something her own government doesn’t think is a big issue in Swindon anyway. Logic, reasoning and representing the best interests of her constituents never were Ms Snelgrove’s strong points. Clearly, they still aren’t.

Degenerating regeneration whitewash

2009-11-23T07:03:00.000Z

It has been announced that the New Swindon Company is to be replaced by a new company tasked with doing… well, almost exactly the same as the New Swindon Company was. This smacks of an attempt to hide failure that’s no more likely to succeed than renaming of Windscale nuclear plant as Sellafield did. According to Swindon Borough Council’s Mr Jones,

The new company will be responsible for the integrated plans for economic development, growth and regeneration.

Hmm… that’s so different from the purpose of the New Swindon Company.

The New Swindon Company was formed in 2002 to stimulate investment and co-ordinate plans for revitalisation of the town centre as a key component to achieving sustainable economic growth.

What’s not so clear from the announcement is how this new bureaucracy will be funded. The New Swindon Company was funded by tax payers through three routes: Swindon Borough Council, the South West Regional Development Agency and the Homes and Communities Agency. Funding from the last two does not seem to be guaranteed. Mr Jones hopes the new bureaucracy will obtain more funding from the private sector. Whether local people wish their town’s regeneration to be lead by an organisation dominated by developers is a question he seems not to have pondered.

As usual, at the conference where this piece of deckchair shuffling was announced, Mr Bluh was in full head-in-the-sand mode.

I find it the most exciting place I’ve ever lived in. We must not pick up the negative side but keep positive. I feel certain we will come out of the recession on the right side. We certainly have got the product here and it is our job to sell it.

Blind, unquestioning optimism has never been a virtue. A decade of demolition and degeneration has not changed that.

Swindon Borough Council gambles on wireless internet

2009-11-17T22:52:00.004Z

Compare and contrast:

Mr Greenhalgh, on moving a bus stop in Penhill;

What part of ‘we don’t have any money’ does Councillor Glaholm not understand?

Mr Edwards on next year’s council budget;

We always strive to deliver the lowest possible rise in council tax but the reality is that we are facing a very difficult situation. We have to look at the rate of council tax or the services we provide. We can’t have both.

From this, you may just get the impression that Swindon Borough Council is exceptionally short of money. Then comes today’s very widely publicised announcement that the council has set up a joint venture with a private company to provide wireless internet access throughout the borough by the coming April. Mr Bluh;

It can’t be about cost-cutting all the time – otherwise there will be nothing left.

Perhaps he should have a word with his cabinet colleagues — particularly Mr Greenhalgh — who appear to have a different opinion. As is often his way, Mr Bluh also seems to have swallowed the company’s publicity spin.

residents in the Borough be able to access the internet for free

Rather than being freee, this could be a costly gamble.

To get through the financial storm, we are going to have to start raising some revenue. We believe this is a good deal for Swindon.

The scheme will cost £1M. The council has a 35% share in the company, so if Mr Bluh’s gamble with our money doesn’t turn out as he expects, the council tax payers of Swindon could end up with a £350,000 bill. And £350,000 is not my understanding of ‘free’.

With the first service beginning in Highworth next month, and completed throughout the borough by the end of April, clearly most of the money will already have been spent. For the sake of everyone in Swindon, we can only hope that Mr Bluh’s commercial speculations are proved correct.

It’s all about… somewhere else

2009-11-14T21:45:00.007Z

Since the demise of Central Outlook over a year ago, central Swindon’s been without a source of hyperlocal news. It may not have been the best quality journalism, but it was a space where truly local issues affecting the Victorian terraced areas of central Swindon were aired. So when this afternoon a new magazine titled “it’s all about central swindon” plopped through my letterbox, I was mildly interested. But not for long.

I suppose I should have been more sceptical given that it arrived buried amongst a load of junk leaflets. The fact that the most prominent place name on the front cover was ‘Highworth’ wasn’t promising either. The editorial told me that there are already editions for east and west Swindon. It also told me that the editorial team are based in Wootton Bassett. That’s even less local than the local newspaper. As for the remainder, there’s a few local (i.e. Swindon-related) reports, adverts, syndicated articles, adverts, advertorials, and adverts.

I almost gave the benefit of the doubt, wondering if the local content might increase significantly in later editions. Then I looked at the online editions for east and west Swindon on their website, apparently in their twelfth and sixth editions respectively. Apart from a piece by Covingham Parish Council in the east Swindon edition, they’re almost indistinguishable. Though the order of the articles is different in each, with very few exceptions the content is the same; and unrelated to the specific circulation area.

It’s not all about central Swindon, it’s all about somewhere else.

Never believe a project plan based on the seasons

2009-11-09T20:57:00.004Z

With the recent departure of Mr James it now seems to have fallen to our local councillors to provide updates on the actions (or more generally lack thereof) of the New Swindon Company. Thus it is that an update ostensibly written by Mr Young has appeared in the ‘talk back’ section of their website previously occupied by Mr James’ thoughts. I say ostensibly, because the piece is hard to distinguish from many others produced by the New Swindon Company spin machine.

As you know, we’ve been focusing a lot lately on improving the town centre’s public realm facilities in order to provide a better environment for our proposed new developments.

I thought they’d been doing it because the government had chucked some taxpayers’ money in their direction.

Plans are also underway for public realm improvement works on Regent Street…. We are hoping to be onsite early next year.

Early next year? That’s not very precise for a construction project that, if taken at face value, could be less than two months away from starting. Perhaps by ‘early’ he means ‘first half of’.

In general, plans for Union Square are moving in a very positive direction.

R.I.P. plain English. I’d rather the plans were stationary but the work progressing.

A detailed planning application for phase one of the development — which will comprise of 45 sheltered dwelling units, a new Primary Health Care Trust facility and a multi-storey car park

For what is meant to be a prime office area that all sounds very public sector to me.

is due to be submitted very shortly. If all goes according to plan, we look forward to starting on site in summer 2010.

Aah, back to those imprecise deadlines. An old adage is never believe a project plan based on the seasons of the year.

An outline planning application for the rest of the development is due early in 2010 — and we hope to be ready to begin on site with phase two of the scheme in the latter part of 2011.

That’s just five years after most of the area was demolished, and still nothing has been done to make use of the areas surrounded by hoardings.

Plans are also nearing completion for the former Swindon College site development. We are hoping to see a planning application submitted in the near future

I’ve heard that one before… several times over at least two years. I’m no more inclined to believe it now than I was last time.

In the more immediate future, work is due to begin on site early in January 2010 for the new BHS development.

Wow! A deadline precise to within a month! So there’s one development we can be confident will happen. Just one. There’s no mention of the replacement for the collapsed Regent Place development. “Transforming Swindon’s retail centre” appears to have been consigned to the already overflowing dustbin of failed regeneration masterplans.

State development

2009-11-06T21:14:00.005Z

It was reported this week that not only is what little redevelopment that’s happening in the town centre being funded by us via the state, but also that building in Swindon’s front garden is also being bankrolled by public funding. Now I don’t mind, too much, the tarting up of Swindon town centre being paid for by our taxes. If the regeneration of Swindon town centre hadn’t stalled it would have been paid for through levies on developers which, ultimately, gets passed on to those that buy the properties and then to those that use them, i.e. the local population. Either way, it’s taxation at the behest of local government.

Rather more objectionable is use of our money to build houses that aren’t wanted locally and now seemingly aren’t wanted by anyone else either. For decades central government has prevented most local councils from spending money from council house sales on building new houses. They still do. Yet now central government’s throwing money at housing developers, to the tune of almost £50,000 per house built in the case of the Swindon scheme.

If our money is going to be spent concreting over the local countryside, I’d rather us locals had a say in where and when it’s done.

Look up please

2009-11-01T07:17:00.000Z

Whilst attending yesterday the New Swindon Company’s exhibition on their plans to emblandise Regent Street, I learned a new bit of developers’ fake psychology. What the man from their consultants said was that the current paving in Regent Street — and elsewhere in the town centre for that matter — is too ‘busy’. Apparently, it’s too distracting and takes people’s attention away from the shops. By making it blander, they think people will look more at the shops and their ‘interesting’ architecture, and go in to buy something. This does, of course, presuppose that there are rather more shops open in Regent Street than there are at the moment. It also presumes an interest amongst shoppers in paving that, I suspect, only a street designer would have. And it’s surely only such a designer that could convince themselves that something — lighting in this case — is ‘inspired’ by a tramway, simply by virtue of being in a straight line.

This exercise in repaving — like others before it — is expected to achieve a miraculous transformation.

The concept design for Regent Street aims to provide a vibrant, accessible street scene, encouraging visitors and shoppers to come to Swindon town centre as an exciting destination in its own right as well as for its many shops.

That, you may notice, is what was said about repaving Canal Walk.

So next time you’re wandering along Regent Street, engrossed by the paving, please look up. The street designers expect nothing less of you.

Emptying the streets

2009-10-30T21:51:00.005Z

Despite little having changed since Swindon Borough Council’s licensing committee last considered proposals to ban street traders from much of Swindon town centre, they have now approved the proposals. The only things that have changed are some strong objections from the owners of The Parade, and the appearance of proposals for repaving Regent Street. Those proposals talk of

De-cluttering the street, removing unnecessary items

yet on the same page encourage cluttering it again.

Encouragement of cafes and food outlets with street side seating areas.

It seems the council’s and New Swindon Company’s views are that a trailer selling doughnuts is bad, but a cafe selling doughnuts on the street is good. Reading the comments of shop-owners and developers, one could be forgiven for thinking that the rundown state of the town centre is entirely a consequence of a few street traders, and nothing to do with their inability to find occupants for now boarded-up shops.

These proposals do nothing to create a ‘vibrant street scene’ but go a very long way towards creating a bland one.

An unhealthy approach to advertising

2009-10-26T23:08:00.004Z

Mr Montgomery, owner of a gym that I’m neither going to name nor link to, is facing legal action from Swindon Borough Council for advertising without consent. His protestations of semi-innocence somewhat understate his activities.

It seems funny that the council seems free to advertise its own gyms outside the Oasis Leisure Centre but I can’t advertise mine outside my own gym. It is pure hypocrisy. There are plenty of businesses I see around the town with these types of posters up yet I see no one else being prosecuted. I feel I am being picked on.

Outside his own gym? If that was the only place he advertised, it might not be so bad. But what about the banners advertising his gym that have been attached on several occasions to the railings around Faringdon Road Park, or those often attached to numerous wire fences around town?

Mr Montgomery’s advertising is just rather elaborate fly-posting, and equally unwelcome. The sooner the council take action against him the better.

Criminal mapping… relaunched

2009-10-22T22:03:00.003+01:00

In January I commented on the launch on Wiltshire Constabulary’s website of maps showing crime levels. Now, less than ten months later, they’ve launched new maps’ nationally, showing exactly the same statistics. What do these maps tell us? Mainly, that the police are adept at wasting taxpayers money. These maps have, apparently taken months of work, yet are worse cartographically than those they replace. As shown in the screen shot below, the maps are very rough, with gaps and overlaps between reporting areas. And if you’re not using Internet Explorer then sorry, these maps aren’t for you. So that’s months of work to deliver a poorer product than they had ten months ago.

Wiltshire police should stick to what we pay the policing component of council tax for… catching criminals.

Open Market

2009-10-17T16:38:00.003+01:00

It’s good to see Swindon’s tented market open for business again. It has some way to go though: only 22 of 32 available stalls have been taken, despite the three week delay in opening, and there are more stalls that haven’t been made available to traders yet.

With clothes stalls, a green grocer, a DIY stall and a coffee stall, amongst others, it’s a good start… but still rather empty.

All bluster but no objection

2009-10-13T23:57:00.004+01:00

The Adver reports that at tonight’s meeting of Swindon Borough Council’s planning committee, Mr Wright made ‘fierce objections’ to the application to build a hotel in Aylesbury Street but also reports that the application was ‘accepted with no oppositions’.

So that’s lots of bluster but, when it really mattered, no vote to record the objections of the people he represents. One could be forgiven for thinking that he’s attempted to get some favourable local publicity by making all that noise, whilst trying to keep his political masters happy by not actually attempting to block a commercial development.

East Wichel up close: an essay in little boxes part 23

2009-10-10T21:51:00.005+01:00

Recently I went for a wander along the recently built streets of East Wichel. Despite the intentions of the developers to make it look ‘vibrant’, the main impression is of row upon row of terraced housing; little Victorian-style boxes which, although all different, look drab and monotonous. The only thing to break the monotony are the barn-like blocks of flats: they just look out-of-place.

I’ve also been in receipt of some sales spin from one of the developers.

[T]he town has been inhabited since at least the Saxon times, evolving from a small market town with the arrival of the industrial revolution into the thriving residential and commercial centre that it is today.

Let’s just forget the damage that the current — thriving even — recession has done, shall we?

For sheer variety, Swindon’s extensive range of amenities is hard to beat.

The copy writer must have lead a very sheltered life.

From the quirkiness of the Old Town to the more contemporary retail parks and a designer outlet, shoppers are exceptionally well catered for, with numerous cafes, bar and restaurants to choose from.

No mention there of shops nor of the town centre. Lots of well fed ‘shoppers’ with nothing to buy then. They’ve thought of that though: they have a fitness plan.

In addition to a cinema and arts centre, the town boasts two leisure centres and a golf course.

Just two leisure centres? What’s happened to the other eight?

[T]he ideal base from which to explore many of the museums and historic places of interest which enrich the region.

And what about Swindon’s own museums and historic places? Aah… hmm… oops!

The train now arriving….

2009-10-04T23:53:00.003+01:00

Swindon Borough Council today lifted a carriage into the former GWR Barracks in the Railway Village. It is to be a feature of their The Platform youth centre. These are highlights of a photographic record of the work to lift £10,500 of scrap railway carriage into place. The few slight scares were very slight indeed.
All photographs © komadori.

The Scene

Preparing for the lift

Great Western airborne

A tight fit

Putting it all back together

Man on the roof

Push!

Almost done

Disconnecting People, Disconnecting Places

2009-10-04T00:27:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I went to Swindon Borough Council’s central area Connecting People Connecting Places event in Wharf Green and the Parade. It was, to be generous, a waste of time.

Connecting People Connecting Places is Swindon Borough Council’s take on the government’s Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power policy. The alleged aim is to get people more interested in local government by taking power — not that there’s much left with all the centralisation and target setting by the current government — from local councils and giving it to groups of local people. Naturally, the thought that a better approach might be to take power from central and regional government and give it to local councils never crossed their mind.

With that poor and illogical reasoning behind its creation, Connecting People Connecting Places is never likely to do well. But the council and most councillors clearly aren’t trying hard either. Today’s event in the town centre had very little advanced publicity: just a page on the Swindon strategic partnership website and a news item on the Council’s website since last Thursday. The ‘cluster chair’ seemed quite unapologetic when this was lack of publicity was highlighted on the TalkSwindon forum. But given how poor the event was, I’m almost ashamed to have tried to publicise the event myself.

What was promised sounded fairly impressive.

Ward members will be on hand between 11am and 2pm at both locations with officers from Swindon Borough Council, the Local Neighbourhood Policing Team, Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service and other volunteers to hear residents’ opinions.

There was no missing the police presence: it seemed as though every member of central Swindon’s police teams was on hand, particularly at Wharf Green. Anyone would think they’d nothing better to do, such as controlling crime. The fire service was also at Wharf Green and inSwindon in the Parade. Less visible were the ward councillors. I saw just two, both dressed in anonymous suits with nothing to identify them as councillors. In fact there was virtually nothing to identify this as a council event at all. It was more a ‘meet the police’ event than a ‘connect with your council’ event.

Council officers will use people’s favourite places in the centre of Swindon to create a virtual Google map. The map will also be used to chart areas where there are problems.

I saw paper maps and post-it notes.

In principle, using different approaches to engage with residents in sensible; but not when it’s as poorly thought out and executed as this was.

Fly-tipping spin

2009-10-03T00:37:00.004+01:00

If Mr Palacio of Swindon Borough Council is to be believed, the increase in fly-tipping in Swindon is because his team is doing more to clear it away.

Richard Palacio, Swindon Council’s environmental enforcement manager, said the increased number of reports of flytipping was down to extra resources being deployed by the council to combat the problem.

That’s as logical as the streets and alleyways of central Swindon are clean. The statistics announced by Defra show an increase in enforcement by councils across the country, not just in Swindon, yet there has been an 8% increase in recorded fly-tipping in Swindon, compared with a 9% decrease nationally.

Either Mr Palacio’s team are highly ineffective, or he’s talking rubbish in more ways than one.

Neither watching nor listening

2009-09-30T00:05:00.003+01:00

Now I appreciate that for the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, listening to Mr Brown losing the support of the country’s best-selling tabloid may seem to be important. Just because it’s important to her though, doesn’t mean it’s important to the rest of us.

Today is the big one, Gordon’s speech. The auditorium will be packed and I’m sure many of you will be glued to your TV sets. The Leader’s speech is always the high-point of Conference and I hope that you will listen to the substance of Gordon’s speech to hear how he has the plans and drive to bring our country out of recession and build Britain’s future.

It seems she’s not noticed that, despite the efforts of her government, some of us still have jobs to go to. Even if I hadn’t, I’ve better things to do with my time than listen to someone preaching about building the economy when the dereliction surrounding us has been of their own making — but at our expense.