ANTI-LITTER campaigners say the landlord of the Oasis Leisure Centre is not sticking to its promise to clean up the site.

Complaints were raised by Plastic-Free Swindon and parish councillors as bins at the abandoned site overflowed, with rubbish strewn across the car park and grass.

SevenCapital, which has a 99-year lease on the Oasis, told the Adver it was "in the process of appointing a contractor to cut hedges, do a general tidy up and empty litter bins in a couple of weeks’ time.”

But when the Plastic Free Swindon and Keep Swindon Tidy environmental groups attended the site on August 18 they were horrified to see that the area was filling up with rubbish. 

A spokesperson from the group said: “Volunteers spent the first four months of this yer keeping the Oasis site tidy of litter. 

“We filled roughly 150 bags fill of rubbish in that time.

“When we went back to the site in June we were disappointed to see nothing had been done by SevenCapital since our last visit and it was getting back to being in a bad way.

“We are now concerned that after they promised to look after the site that nothing seems to have been done again. All we want is for them to maintain the property on a regular basis as per the teams of their lease with the council.

“But they clearly don’t care about it at all, they don’t care about the site, the community or the wildlife.”

Anti-litter campaigner Josie Lewis issued her own challenge to SevenCapital.

She said: “I am officially inviting SevenCapital staff to come and clean the Oasis.
"We’ll provide grabbers and black sacks and it can be a team-building day for however long it takes to clean it up.”

Ward councillor Jim Grant added that ultimately the landlord needs to back up its promises with action

“SevenCapital who are the owners of the site need to get a handle on this issue, we can’t let the site deteriorate anymore and it is their responsibility, and they should accept that responsibility,” he said. 

Central Swindon North Parish Clerk Andy Reeves added SevenCapital should have an ongoing maintenance plan in place.

“What we would like to see is an ongoing maintenance programme instead of a reactive pattern of sending someone when someone complains,” he said.

“Some sort of reassurance of some sort of ongoing maintenance schedule would be appreciated.”

SevenCapital was approached for comment.