Does Swindon Need A Fanfare For The Common Land?

The Coate building decision is now in the hands of officials in Bristol, the Core Strategy response stunned the council, so now's time to step back and consider the bigger picture.

Swindon needs to expand, for a collection of reasons, but sustainability is increasingly coming to the fore. Is now the time for Swindon to seek to designate land as 'common land' and prevent development or inappropriate use of it for the long-term?

Our town has many pockets of land that the Borough owns, Coate Water, Lydiard Park, Lawn, the open spaces of the post-war developments at Covingham, and Nythe, the list goes on. But should we now consider letting a ring around our town to stay as it is, green and made public for all?

Swindon Centric Says ; Swindon does not have a greenbelt, but that doesn't mean we can't protect those areas of land that the town wants to protect. It would make a statement about our town's environmental credentials.

Thoughts anyone?

Swindon Engages - Council Stunned - Bloggers Delighted

The huge response received by Swindon Borough Council on the Core Strategy has stunned the Council.

After the extension of the deadline for consultation, a flurry of late submissions on Coate were expected, but nothing on this scale. The majority areas that will have been received will concern the Tadpole Farm development, the Coate Water area development and the Eastern Development Area. The EDA will be an interesting one to follow as some of the Swindon ruling Conservatives jumped on the scaling-down of the proposed housebuilding numbers for that area as a political win, when it's actually a small reduction in the number of houses to be built. Indeed it was a two-faced spectacle to see some councillors appose house building of a hundred or so houses next to Lydiard Park whilst shrugging shoulders about housebuilding at Coate and in the EDA (all that happened around election time last year, no connection of course).

Now the real work will begin, with a redrawing of the planning of the town up until 2026, when this Core Strategy covers and many of those 'well, isn't a shame we can't save this countryside' councillor shrugs get thrown-out with this public response.

Swindon Centric Says ; Elections of every single Swindon Borough Council seat happens next May, it'll be interesting to see how councillors who've got involved in planning decisions change, disavow or forget what they said as the planning landscape politic has changed beneath their feet.