Regenerating Swindon's town centre

Martha Parry of Swindon's New Mechanics' Trust reviews plans put forward by the New Swindon Company

The proposals on display in the Brunel Centre on 5 and 6 July reflect up-to-the-minute thinking by the New Swindon about the prospects for the future of Swindon Town Centre.

Trustees of the Mechanics' Preservation Trust want to congratulate the urban regeneration company on the major step forward that the proposals represent, in comparison with the ideas put forward two years ago by town planning consultants Shillam & Smith.

We were impressed with the improved understanding of how the centre of Swindon is organised along different lines in different 'sectors'. In particular, we are relieved to see the designation of a 'Heritage Quarter' which takes in the GWR 'Works' site and the Railway Village. We could never understand how the previous study could have 'scissored out' this wonderful part of the town centre.

The New Swindon Company's proposals are still not clear about the range of uses considered appropriate for the Mechanics' building which appears to have changed ownership lately. However, the Trust is enormously satisfied that the Company have supported our proposal to pedestrianise Emlyn Square, and re-direct the through traffic. Vehicles have only been routed via Emlyn Square since the 1970's and the introduction of the one-way system. The time has come to resolve once and for all the inadequacy of this network.

The significance of this 'Heritage Quarter' is so great that the area forms the core of the proposal to create a United Nations GWR World Heritage Site, which would place the Great Western Railway line from Paddington, London to Temple Meads, Bristol (including the Swindon 'Heritage Quarter') on a par with Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles.

No one ever suggested that Stonehenge be used as a roundabout; that is the scale of intrusion that has been loaded unnecessarily upon Emlyn Square, which has been used as a safety valve for inadequate investment in traffic infrastructure. This is one of the main ways in which the New Swindon Company can benefit the town by identifying the key infrastructural investments needed by central and regional government to help Swindon achieve is greatest potential. The Trust hopes perhaps this might shift the 'give it away to the lowest bidder' attitude that has characterised so much of post-war planning and commercial investment in Swindon.

The UN proposal would result in Swindon's heritage forming the pendant in a necklace of railway line (and Brunel's bridges and tunnels) across Southern England. Of course, the Trust thinks the restored Mechanics' Institution represents the diamond in that pendant. This is why 'any old use for the Mechanics' will not do, in our judgment. The social role the Mechanics' played in Swindon's survival and evolution is crucial to the Swindon story. And that role today, in the opinion of a large number of people, is unfulfilled and desperately wanting.


Last year's Swindon Mayor councillor Stan Pajak with Mechanics' Preservation Trustees, friends and supporters when the trust took up office space in the former railway museum in March.

Some 2,500 local people have agreed with the Trust and become members over the past 8 years. Because the Trust has been active for so long, and is so well supported by a wide range of Swindon people, we believe that we have a potentially helpful role to play in considering future developments. As a preservation trust, we have access to national expertise in heritage regeneration via some 200 other such trusts, and several national organisations, as well as our own well-developed team of volunteers.

Therefore, we think the time has come to ask to be included formally in the partnership which the New Swindon Company represents. The involvement of the local community is one of the key principles of successful regeneration nationwide.

The Trust is asking the Board of Directors of the publicly funded New Swindon Company to consider our request for a formal role on the Board, as facilitators of local community involvement as the planning and implementation continues.

The Trust is well-placed to support on-going exhibitions and communications with area residents from its council-owned heritage premises in the former GWR Railway Museum, at a key crossroads within the regeneration area. Further displays and public meetings with interested groups and neighbourhoods can be economically supported here, as two recent events demonstrated.

We invite all Swindonians to visit the former museum in Emlyn Square during July, open every day noon to 2pm, to see what a transformation the Trust has achieved, and to imagine ways in which this building can serve the town in the future, alongside the Mechanics' Institution and other well-loved landmarks in Swindon's 'Heritage Quarter'.

For more information on the New Mechanics' Trust and the contents of this article, call Martha Parry on 01793 520592 or mail: mail@new-mechanics.com

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