The neverending story

On a pleasing ‘figure of eight’ route, a state-of-the-art light railway imperiously wends its way around this “world class European city centre” which oozes continental ambience, sophistication and culture.

There isn’t an unsightly, soulless Sixties or Seventies-built monstrosity to be seen. But where is this vibrant, buzzing, ultra-modern city that, we are assured, will have the vibe and feel of a Zurich or a Dublin?

It is Swindon, of course. That is, Swindon in the year 2030. This, at least, is what we are being told and shown at the De Vere Hotel at Shaw Ridge in February, 2001.

Some startling images, almost with an air of science fiction, have been pinned up around the hotel conference room for our delectation. But mostly, we are here to watch a film – a promotional video of sorts – which, some doubters may think, also bears an element science fiction.

Entitled “Swindon’s City of the Future” it is a virtual reality tour of what our town could, and it is hoped would, look like three decades hence.

“The video won’t win any Oscars,” concedes the leader of Swindon Borough Council, Sue Bates, addressing assorted movers and shakers from a podium.

“But it’s the starting block of how Swindon will evolve in the future,” she says. It was the result, the leader continues, of “forward and visionary thinking,” and has been drawn-up to create “a city that will provide a better environment for culture, for business and for education – a city created for a new kind of lifestyle.”

The “Renewal of Swindon,” Sue adds, will also rid us once and for all of those “concrete box-like” office blocks, prompting, I am convinced, several utterances of “about time” around the hall.

The council’s chief executive Paul Doherty puts it this way: “This is a historic moment. It’s the start of the biggest thing to happen to Swindon in a century. And it’s achievable.”

The local authority’s Swindon News publication trumpets: “European dream city within our grasp.”

To underline the vision’s hi-tech feelgood factor the article is illustrated with an image of a nifty “ultra-light rapid transit system” train that will, in years to come, zip around town.

Oh yes, and the scheme will feature an “urban lake” slap bang in the middle of Central Swindon.

There is nothing wrong with ambition, that’s for sure. Brunel and the Great Western Railway lacked none of the stuff 175 years ago when they forged a path west and laid the foundations for the modern town that became Swindon.

However, we are virtually halfway to 2030 since that conference and Swindon remains pockmarked with many unsightly office and shop buildings – although a few admittedly, are now dust.

Swindon’s City of the Future, though, still seems a million miles away. And no one ever mentions the lake anymore.

The imminent opening of the former college site in Regent Circus – which will at least bring a cinema back into the town centre for the first time in 23 years – reminds me of that virtual tour of our futuristic city. Talkin’ ’bout our regeneration, to misquote The Who, has become an ongoing topic in Swindon… and not always a happy one. Over the years, Swindon’s revival has been the subject of many lofty schemes, often unveiled with much hoo-ha while accompanied with mind boggling artists’ impressions showing us how fantastically futuristic the town centre is going to look fairly soon. But like the old Cannon Cinema in 1991, they invariably flicker and die.

Take the £150 million “world class” – yup, that word again – “shopping experience” which would see 100 new shops, a ten-screen cinema, an 800-seat food court and a 1,400 space multi-storey car park arise from Havelock Street, Morley Street and Granville Street.

This “continental style” – yup, that word again” – complex would replace the “soulless lager-land” the area became after dusk, said the developers.

Announced in 2002 it was a dead duck three years later, the company behind the scheme having sold the project to someone else who then pulled the plug. The Swindon Civic Trust didn’t like it anyway, labelling it a “bog standard” American mall.

Then there was the proposed £80 million transformation of the five-acre Granville Street/Morley Street car park, just off Commercial Road.

There was no shortage of wow factor in the accompanying graphics that artily depicted a sweeping circular concourse, assorted glassy footbridges and shimmering retail outlets.

It would reinvigorate Swindon’s “tired and stagnant” town centre. Or as deputy council leader Rod Bluh said: “We are going to put Swindon back on the map as a major retail centre.” But it didn’t because it never happened.

In 2005, Swindon’s unloved and unlovely Seventies-built Central Post Office received its just desserts and was flattened. A computer generated image depicted what the site it once occupied would soon look like, showing a truly spectacular glass tower soaring dizzily above a plaza flanked by shiny new structures and dotted with people the size of ants.

It could have come straight out of the pages of Marvel Comics… minus Spider-Man. Should be great when they actually get round to building it.

Six years ago a £215 million scheme to create ‘Regent Place’ would include a new department store, 45 shops, 170 flats and assorted restaurants and cafes – all set for the Morley Street/Granville Street car park. Due to open in 2012, the foundations remain un-laid. And so on… No-one is blaming anyone in particular for any of this, except the vagaries of the economy and perhaps some over-zealous town planners and imaginative graphic artists. Some headway has been made though (see panel) in a piecemeal sort of way.

And with 16 years to go you never know – we may yet get some sort of ‘City of the Future – 2030’… with or without the lake.

• IT was called Phoenix Gate and was supposed to rise from the scruffy Central Post Office site off Fleming Way like the proverbial bird.

  But in 2001 the £13 million scheme for a 125ft high, ten-storey apartment block was shot down by Swindon planners for not being up to scratch. Fair enough.

  A couple of years later Plaza 21, a stylish £9 million distinctively blue coloured block of 74 apartments rose from the brownfield site of the BT Building in Edgware Road. Apart from the David Murray John Tower 30 years earlier they were reckoned to be the first new homes built in the town centre for a century.

  Around the same time in 2003 North Swindon MP Michael Wills had his own thoughts of the regeneration of the town centre.

  “Knock the lot down and start again,” he said.

  “We have got to take a radical approach,” he went on.

  “I wouldn’t be unhappy if the council wanted to keep none of it and start as if it were a greenfield site.”

• JUST four years after it was unveiled Swindon’s “achievable” City of the Future morphed into what was deemed an even more achievable £1 billion Vision for Swindon.
  Chunks of Central Swindon were parcelled into themed redevelopment zones: The Arena, The Exchange, Swindon Central, The Hub, North Star Village, The Campus and The Promenade.
  Not much happened until two years ago when The Masterplan was unveiled that broadly set out to achieve some elements of The Vision over the coming ten to 15 years.
  Despite numerous set-backs, hold-ups and brick walls which invariably get run into there has been some success.
  After decades of making do with an embarrassing collection of huts Swindon finally got a custom-built Central Library.
  The town centre has undergone a multi-million pound repaving, a new railway station forecourt is in place, while a £25 million shopping centre opened four years ago in The Parade.
  Some ugliness has also been removed, notably the central post office, the college and the police station.
  The latter has been replaced with an unsexy but sadly essential multi storey car park that is part of an ongoing development called Kimmerfields.