ON a downcast Saturday in April walkers of varying ages and from varying backgrounds amble along a rural lane on the edge of Swindon, chatting, snapping photographs and surveying the surrounding countryside with its trees, copse and hedgerows.

They are here to celebrate the landscape in which they are roaming – hundreds of acres of grassy fields that still contain the “worn but extant” remains of a Bronze Age burial mound and the remnants of a stone circle thought to be nearly 4,000 years old.

A Roman villa, an Iron Age settlement and a medieval village all once existed in this bucolic enclave where the shiny white outline of the distant Great Western Hospital and a dull hum of faraway traffic reminds them that they are not entirely out in the sticks.

Today, nine months later, the scene is very different as anyone who has driven past the diggers and construction trucks along the roadwork-clogged A4259 between the roundabouts of Commonhead and The Sun Inn will tell you.

Enveloped in scaffolding, three and four-bedroom houses have materialised – it is amazing how quickly they put ’em up – dramatically and eternally transforming the nature of this once sleepy backwater.

“So what,” you might say. “Where’s the problem?” Swindon has been in a constant state of growth since Mr Brunel said “OK guys, let’s build it here” nearly 180 years ago, signalling the birth of the GWR works and the modern town we know today.

However, these new structures – this brutal intrusion, you might think – marks the end of one of the most intensely fought anti-development campaigns ever mounted in this town… a decade-long, roller-coaster ride that has seen many a battle won but ultimately a war lost.

In the space of a few post Millennium years, a relatively small group of environmental enthusiasts won the support of a staggering 52,000 people who signed their petition – the equivalent of almost one in three of the town’s population. They couldn’t be branded NIMBYs either because very few of those involved in this particular campaign lived in this particular backyard.

So why the hoo-ha, why the endless meetings, the special websites, the banners, the door-step thick pile of petition papers, why the distribution of campaign badges (I’ve still got mine) and even – how’s this for commitment – the creation of a conservation trust to preserve and enhance the land as countryside instead plonking another Swindon housing estate onto it?

What’s the big deal – and where do Ant and Dec fit into all of this?

It is all about Coate Water, of course – that precious man-made lake that has been acclaimed The People of Swindon’s Favourite Place – along with the adjoining countryside that forms its setting.

Moves to build on that tantalising green strip between Coate Water Country Park and the Marlborough Downs are nothing new. More than quarter-of-a-century ago developers tried to get their foot in the door before it was soundly slammed.

As the rumpus over the development of Swindon’s Back Garden – which became the Wichelstowe estate – occupied everyone’s minds during the Nineties, concreting and paving Coate Country Park was put on the backburner.

In the summer of 2004, however, a bombshell. Swindon would at last realise its 50-year dream to attain a university… but at the expense of the countryside next to Coate Water.

The Gateway scheme would see a campus built by the University of Bath next to the hospital – which opened 18 months earlier – along with some office blocks and 1,800 houses… the latter being mightily close to Coate Water, Wiltshire’s first designated Nature Reserve.

Some felt the sacrifice of this untainted swathe of 500 acres of greenery was worth it. Others said “We want the uni – but not here.” Professor Glynis Breakwell of the University of Bath responded: “It’s here or nowhere.”

Coate Water lovers who feared that building houses as close as 40 metres away would devastate the park’s surprisingly diverse assemblage of protected wildlife (badgers, water voles, otters, bats, adders, slow worms, lizards, great crested newts etc) said: “This is a crime that must be stopped.”

And stop it they tried, drawing up a petition which simply grew and grew. By March 2005 they had bagged 14,000 signatures. Two months later it was 17,000, by September there were 23,000 before it careered past 26,000 in November.

As well as recruiting a large number of organisations to help fight the cause – from Swindon TUC to English Nature – they acquired the posthumous services of revered-by-some nature writer and ex-Adver scribe Richard Jefferies (1848-1887.) He lived at Coate and eulogised in verse and prose much of the countryside that was set to vanish. A charity called the Jefferies Land Conservation Trust was formed that proposed alternative uses for the rural haven focusing on its environmental and literary merits.

In February of 2007 another bombshell. Bath pulled the plug on its involvement for reasons including the density of proposed housing. “A huge blow to the scheme,” opined delighted campaigners.

But you can’t keep a good developer down and back they came – Persimmon and Redrow Homes – with a revised bid for 1,800 homes and with the University of the West of England in tow.

By this time the petition had topped 50,000.

“There is an incredible amount of opposition to developing this glorious and historic spot… the last remaining pocket of unspoilt countryside close to Swindon,” said Jean Saunders, who spearheaded the decade-long campaign.

The plan crumbled in the face of immense unpopularity but the duo were back again, this time slashing the proposed number of houses to 900.

The scheme was loudly booted out by Swindon Council in 2011. Planning committee chairman Dale Heenan declared: “Public opinion is very clear on this, that we don’t want to see development.”

But the door for development was already ajar after the site hds been outlined as a “preferred housing option” for 750 houses in a 2008 Swindon Council planning blueprint.

To the horror of many, developers were in 2012 given the go-ahead after Government Minister Eric Pickles over-ruled the council’s decision (see panel.) “It’s a tragedy,” said Jean.

Which brings us to April 5 last year when a Celebrate Coate weekend saw campaigners, civic trust members, environment lovers and local people troop along Day House Lane to admire the rustic scenery before the view became history.

“When it’s gone it’s gone forever – so we might as well celebrate it while it’s here,” was the spirited though somewhat mournful ethos of the occasion.

The developers, however, put it this way: “Redrow’s New Heritage Collection of detached family homes will be a real asset to the Swindon area.”

Decide for yourself…