Letter from Frank Gleed (From Swindon Advertiser)

Letter from Frank Gleed

10:08am Friday 3rd July 2009

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I WONDER how many people in Swindon bothered to read Hard Times in Saturday’s Telegraph magazine? The article was all about present day life for young people in Swindon, a town somebody said would miss the worst of the recession. The article also vividly describes the mess the town centre is at present.

Peter James (New Swindon Company), is quoted as saying: “We haven’t had a new office building in the centre of the town for 15 years, which is crazy.”

Well in case you haven’t noticed Mr James, many office blocks that were empty have been converted into flats because nobody wanted office space in town centres and that was before the recession.

In the Advertiser recently the council stated 8,000 people needed homes hence the need to build 12,000 houses east of the A419. A few tower blocks and sensible town houses in the town centre would solve this problem and regenerate the town centre at the same time reclaiming the streets that had some dwellings years ago. Even some of the schools are still there! Building vast shopping malls in the centre is a waste of time, the only way to rejuvenate the centre is to get people living in it.

Last Saturday I took my granddaughter to Lotmead Farm for the Strawberries and Steam Fair, a very enjoyable experience but tinged with sadness for me as I thought one day the scene could be buried under tarmac and concrete as the government attempts to house half the homeless of the world.

Strawberry fields forever.

FRANK GLEED West View Nythe Swindon

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