HOUSING campaigners have asked for a £30m regeneration programme to be suspended until a proper consultation is carried out.

Brian Shakespeare, of Swindon Tenants Campaign Group (STCG), asked for the Queens Drive housing project to be stopped during a meeting of the council’s scrutiny committee on Monday night.

Speaking of “the D-Day looming for the demolition of property on Queens Drive,” Mr Shakespeare accused the council of not properly consulting with campaign groups and tenants.

He said: “The STCG had a recent meeting with the council and this scheme was not mentioned. Instead, it was left to the Adver to give us the details.”

He asked: “Why wasn’t this matter brought to CMAG?”

CMAG is the Cabinet Member Advisory Group that scrutinises the borough’s housing policy, and Mr Shakespeare objected to the fact that the body had not been consulted.

He added: “STCG are asking the scrutiny committee to suspend the Queens Drive redevelopment until tenants have been given the opportunity to be consulted by the council.”

The council’s cabinet last week approved plans for the demolition of properties alongside Queens Drive, at George Gay Gardens and the T-blocks to the south of Wolsely Avenue, in order to make way for 149 new affordable homes.

The authority has committed to building 266 new homes, of which 48 have already been built at Sussex Place, 14 at Townsend House and three at Brookfield.

The Queens Drive development will see 99 flats and 50 houses built, exceeding the number of units planned.

Defending the plans, Coun Kathy Martyn, the cabinet member for housing, said that the reason the plans hadn’t yet been brought to CMAG was because “strategic decisions are the purview of cabinet”.

“This decision made by cabinet was made correctly,” she said.

She also objected to Mr Shakespeare’s claims that tenants hadn’t properly been consulted.

“We have had extensive consultations with tenants and they were generally supportive,” she said.

“We engaged very closely with them and their families and we have received no complaints from the tenants who have been relocated.”

She promised to bring the issue to CMAG in June.