People have been spitting out drinks, choking on food and making faces of many and varied after Justin 'PR Campaign' Tomlinson put the phrase 'I don't like to be overtly political in my weekly column' in his Adver column.
HA!
If there's one thing Tomlinson does well, it's making everything overtly political.
Swindon Borough Council has refused to name the Swindon Borough Councillor who was taken to court for not paying their council tax, with the now legendary quote that "we would not release the details of a member of the public in such circumstances". They then say that they consider a councillor has the same right to privacy.
It appears they have no legal leg to stand on, as other local authorities have named councillors under the same circumstances. Meanwhile the dismissive attitude of SBC on a matter of transparency when councillors should be held to a greater level of moral integrity than anyone else in the town shows just how far things have fallen in the rotten borough.
So, like the Swindon Advertiser (which gets top marks for some quality local political coverage), Swindon Centric says : Give us the name.
The news of a second community trust bid seems to have been very welcomed by Swindon Borough Council.
The comment in the Adver story from an SBC manager about the bid sounds a little bit like a ringing endorsement... “The staff management team, who have seen this right through from expression of interest to the bid, are absolutely delighted to be working with such a strong trustee board to secure a fantastic future for Lydiard.”
Surely SBC needs to be entirely impartial up until the choice of who will run it has finally been made?
Despite all the talk (that's been going on for a long, long time) from the Mechanics' Trust about working together with others to secure the future of the building, they seem to have retreated back to their own turf if recent news is anything to go by.
Despite Forward Swindon carrying out an options appraisal for Swindon Borough Council, the Trust have got a grant from the Architectural Heritage Fund to carry out their own viability study.
The Trust still do not own the building and do not have the financial backing in place to buy it, pay for it's restoration, or the day-to-day costs of running it.
Many years ago Swindon Centric paid a pound to the Trust to be a member (probably along with many others) and never received or heard anything more from them, ever.
I suppose it's foolish to assume that pound was put in a bank account and has earned a healthy interest in the pot for the building.
If the Trust had put as much effort into fundraising as it's done into getting itself into the Adver every month or so to report that things are either progressing well/it's still at risk/the council don't take it seriously or a combination of these (like here, here and here), the building would be in use.
If you're going to have a conflict of interest you might as well make it as big as possible with 2 full pages in a newspaper, 14 storeys of a tower block and a plan that has enraged an entire district of Swindon.
The Swindon Advertiser story on the hope-to-be-but-now-shelved development of the Adver offices on Victoria Road is easily the worst proposed development for Old Town in a generation.
The highlights included plonking a 14 storey tower block of flats within a few hundred years of Christ Church spire, blocks of flats that take no account of the local area's materials or character and a basic misunderstanding that Old Town is the "poor neighbour" of New Town.
Surprisingly, the developer has now withdrawn the plan and will go back to the drawing board. What's more surprising is that the Adver have given the full details of the shelving and have restated that they exist to report the news in a balanced and fair way. Journalistic integrity!
What would William Morris make of it?
Let's hope the revised plans are not simply something low-rise but equally out-of-character to the tower plan.
A statistical analysis of Swindon Borough Council Leader Rod Bluh's weekly column from the Swindon Advertiser in which he defends the construction of the new Croft Primary School.
Frequency of words and phrases within the column -
I = 4
We = 7
OFSTED = 1
Children = 5
Class Solutions = 0
Business Opportunity = 0
Consultation = 0
Cost Overrun = 0
It would appear that the Swindon Advertiser has fallen out of love with the Swindon Conservatives. What was the straw that broke the camel's back? That most contentious of local stories, wheelie bins.
Coverage and comment was gathered from Councillor Derique Montaut (who a recent front page story headline seemed to be aimed at regarding critics of the wi-fi) to fellow Swindon Conservatives own Councillor Fionuala Foley (who was Council Deputy Leader, but stepped down), that spending the £30,000 to audit waste in dustcarts was a waste of money.
Swindon Centric Says ; A tip-of-the-hat to Charley Morgan for breaking the Adver's duck on critical coverage on Swindon Borough Council. As Chris Watts at Talk Swindon has said, the Pravda name applied to the paper may have just slipped after the response to the coverage by the Advertiser at the latest Cabinet Meeting.
The Adver gave front page coverage (and rightly so) to the vandalism on the Great Western Main Line at Stratton Green Bridge, where a trainwas seriously damaged by vandals placing steel reinforced blocks across the 'Up' line.
Later in the story, Mr Jackson-Haines, Operations Manager at Network Rail is mentioned as informing the paper about the £50,000 cost of removing graffiti from tunnels near Blagrove.
But, there aren't any tunnels at Blagrove, there's several bridges.
Swindon Centric Says ; I'm not sure which is worse, a newspaper getting the term wrong, or someone from Network Rail getting fuzzy on the differences between tunnels and bridges.
Kudos to the Adver for being one of the few to cover the story of Jan Gibson and her guide dog Dipper.
Swindon Centric Says ; Perhaps such a positive story could have been put higher up in the priority stakes, rather than on page eleven? But, credit for covering it all the same.
Standards, as written about here, are wide and varying at the Adver with yesterday's story comparing Sheffield's regeneration with Swindon's showing the other end of the spectrum.
Stephanie Tye's report was knowledgeable, well balanced and had a positive tone, much like Mark Easton's, which focussed on some similar issues.
Swindon Centric Says ; Swindon needs a reporting consistency like well beaten egg whites, rather than the gravy-like consistency it has currently, thick and lumpy.
Once again, the mention of Swindon in the national media has raised mostly unfounded "uproar" from who exactly?
Just the Adver.
The Adver used the headline "BBC jibe at town causes uproar" in response to a detailed and well balanced report by the BBC's Mark Easton on the effect of the recession on the town.
They hooked onto one line in the report, that Swindon was a town "going nowhere, fast", which was in the wider context of Swindon's historically fast growth and used it to justify another piece about Swindon bashing.
Swindon Centric Says ; People in this town have far more backbone and sense than the Adver assumes in it's reporting and no "uproar" has been evident in the streets of the town, on the buses (for further details, see the post below) or in the pages of the newspaper (apart from councillors and MPs, who were probably asked to comment).
They missed the entire point of the report, which showed a former Honda worker retraining at college and the far better position the town is in compared to other places to cope with the recession.
The Adver's reporting policy needs to grow some backbone, stop focussing on pettiness and fully understand a story before publishing it.
The Advertiser was surprised that more people didn't take part in it's online and ballot box poll about a Swindon directly elected mayor.
That may be because it wasn't that vital and urgent an issue to start with when the Link Magazine began running with it in 2001 (in response to the inability of the parties at the time to work together in the cabinet form on the council). The comments by one MP and the council leader seem to agree that it would make "little difference".
Swindon Centric Says ; A directly elected, accountable member of the council and government? Aren't they local councillors and MPs? Lets get back to stories and issues that matter, instead of creating them out of thin air.
Yesterday's story about the Adver's coverage of town schools has been vindicated by this story from today.
Brand new modern windows, that fit in with the style of the building is a welcome step forward in standards for the school. However, why wasn't this included in yesterday's lead story to balance things up?
Swindon Centric Says ; Worst of all, no mention is made of yesterday's story in today's. Seems that joined-up-journalism still has yet to reach 100 Victoria Road.
Any coverage of child poverty, especially if you can localise it to your own town is welcomed.
However, if you find a local example to show this plight, surely you'd listen to what they said and possibly pause and say "pardon", when they tell you how much they spend on their child's school uniform.
Kerry Thomas said how difficult things are for her, with little spare money. But she also said she spent £200 on her five year-old son's school uniform.
Swindon Centric Says ; What is costing her £200 in uniform wares? Did she not hear about the £4 uniform that Asda launched in the summer. It may have sold out, but the 'normal' prices are still cheaper than £200.
As expected, housebuilding on the majority of the Front Garden will not start this year, as the council has suspended choosing a developer. 200 low-cost houses will still be built.
A common sense decision; however this illustrates an unattractive part of Swindon's housing policy. There are still many unbuilt and half-built houses in North Swindon, on which work has also been suspended. The sense in waiting for one area to be built and occupied before starting somewhere else is obvious.
Swindon Centric Says ; What's less obvious is why work began on the Front Garden, leaving it to look like a dirt-bike track (with the earth churned up for laying of services) for possibly several years. Let's just hope that it's not too late in the year for the grass to grow back to make the garden green again.
The opinion of Komadori very much mirrors our own on the headline grabbing subject of speed cameras this week. If you are caught speeding, then tough, deal with it.
The inevitable collapse of the discussion into party politics was entirely expected. However the news about falling crime in Swindon didn't merit as much 'big bang' coverage. With this story, the old chestnut of 'how much crime isn't reported', is often wheeled out. But that shouldn't detract from the fall in crime as the figures show.
One interesting number that should be attached to every sensational headline about knife crime in the town is that it constitutes 0.3 per cent of all crime.
Swindon Centric Says ; When crimes against the person drop to the lowest level in the south-west, for our town, it should make the front page and should lead the story. Good news doesn't have to involve fluffy animals, it can include positive achievements and make an interesting newspaper-selling story to boot.
Footnote : On the issue of knife crime, this report on the BBC is very telling. The statistics show knife crime has stayed at the same level but the irrational fear exhibited by the public doesn't reflect this.
The ultimate local news story, travellers raising the blood pressure of locals, has been given it's latest airing. This weeks best chestnuts so far have been featured in a report by the Advertiser.
On this occasion, we take off our hat to the Swindon Advertiser. Specifically the quotes from locals. Your appetizer was a simple, no nonsense line that wouldn't have been out of place in a Famous Five book, "this will not do."
But the gold goes to an unnamed, 'other man', who said, "to defecate in the bushes is not human. I can't believe this has happened."
Swindon Centric Says ; 'Other Man' must live a very sheltered life and regarding the bushes, has clearly never been camping.
As Komadori pointed out, the accuracy from the Swindon Advertiser leaves something to be desired. We have mentioned here before about the poor knowledge of the railways from the town's only daily newspaper.
To the Advertiser's credit, a re-edited version of the story was posted on the newspaper's website on Monday evening. However, the new draft of the story has cut out any mention of the potential top speed of the new lines, correct or incorrect. A little research would reveal that the current top speed, of 186mph achieved by the Eurostar and the first TGV trains, would be at the top end of any new high speed line's limit. While, 140mph would be at the other end, since this is the speed the new commuter trains to be introduced for domestic services from Kent to London are built for.
Swindon Centric Says ; Less than five minutes research, gets the facts. Simple and accurate.
