Trapped in the Front Garden

Plans are moving forward for the development of the area between the town and the M4 motorway known as the Southern Development Area, or Front Garden. However Charmian Spickernell of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), asks, how will people from West Swindon and from Blagrove access the Front Garden and the proposed railway station?

The application for the SDA safeguards land for a station on the south side of the railway. However, there is no bridge or tunnel proposed over the railway linking it with the north. From West Swindon or Blagrove, motorists will have to go round an improved M4 Junction 16, along Hay Lane and back into the Front Garden by a tunnel under the M4.


Nick Sedgewick of Bryant Homes and Les Durrant of plannng consultants DPDS with the new proposals for SDA put forward in November.
(Photo: Calyx Multimedia. www.calyxpix.com)

Two of the most important issues for urban extensions are access and integration. Neither will be achieved with the current plan. The 4,500 homes in the Front Garden will be cut off from the rest of Swindon by the railway line and the Old Town escarpment. In peak hours the route to Wootton Bassett Road along Redpost Drive will be for buses only. There will be a bottleneck at Croft Road. Despite the bus services, it may well be much easier to commute from the Front Garden along the M4.

If the Southern Relief Road ended in a tunnel or bridge over the railway to Blagrove instead of in a tunnel under the M4, some of the integration and access problems might be solved. So far the the idea has fallen on deaf ears.


The Front Garden from Toothill with the Great Western Way in the foreground and M4 in the background

Until Saturday 24 January you have the chance to write with objections to the proposals to Martin Trewhella, Swindon Borough Council, Premier House, Station Road, Swindon SN1 1TZ, quoting S.02.2000.

Due to the immense public interest the council's planning committee has provisionally booked the Wyvern Theatre on that day to consider the SDA planning application. If it grants planning permission the decision will go to the Secretary of State who will decide whether or not to call the proposals in.

You could also ask for this large green-field development to be called in on the grounds that with more than 5,000 houses still to be built in the Northern Development and at least 2,000 from previously developed land, there is at least a five year supply of housing. The need is to revitalise the town centre first to build a firm basis for the future.