Is Swindon destined to get another 20,000 houses?

Time is running out to respond to the Wiltshire and Swindon Structure Plan 2016 pre-deposit draft. The deadline for receiving comments on the proposals in the document, available at libraries and the council offices at Premier House, Station Road, is 9 June.

You can download the document (Shaping the Future Development of Wiltshire and Swindon) with the response form as an Adobe Acrobat Reader file (168kb) at:

shaping_the_future_development_of_wiltshire_and_swindon-5.pdf

Between 1996 and 2016, Government specified that 60,000 houses be built in Wiltshire, 24,500 in Swindon, along with 260 hectares of land for employment.

The majority of the houses have been built, or land has been committed for them, for example in the Front Garden. Sites for another 1,900 homes have yet to be found, as well as another 50 hectares for employment purposes.

But the big questions are, where should the land be allocated and what are the implications for the period after 2016? No development proposals have been identified yet, and the headline above is a provocative question. But Government regional planning guidance has identified Swindon as one of 11 principal urban areas in the South West designated for growth.



In the short term the planners want to know where the last 1,900 houses to be built in the plan up to 2016 should go. Should they form a new village on the edge of existing urban development, for example West Swindon?

On the other hand, should they form the basis for a major as yet unspecified housing development after 2016? The planners have set out choices to be considered with regard to transportation, the environment, employment, brown field development and are considering comments from the exhibition; further views can be submitted by 9 June before a final report is made later in the year.

As Mark Newey explains Swindon and Wiltshire County Councils are required to plan for the future and 'cannot choose to do nothing.' "The councils are looking inwards at existing urban areas to maximise the use of previously developed land. 'Only then, whilst respecting existing residents quality of life, will greenfield land be considered for development.'

If Swindon is eventually to get even more houses, it could grow well beyond its present boundaries into previously protected areas such as Wootton Bassett, Lydiard Millicent and Purton.

Photos supplied by Priory Vale: www.prioryvale.com