The Swindon carbuncle

'We hate it ­ but that's not enough to stop it,' says councillor Central area councillor David Nash has been critical of the ill considered decision by Swindon Council's planning committee last October to give outline planning permission for the commercial development of the derelict Mechanics' Institute. He believes it's a decision which will haunt the town. Here he looks at the proposals put forward to build a hotel on top of the building.

In October 2003, Swindon Borough Council's Planning Committee approved a change of use to the Mechanics' Institute based on an officer's report that was stacked in favour of the applicant Mr Mathew Singh of Forefront Estates. I was extremely concerned at the time that this action had effectively tied the committee's hands when it came to dealing with a future full planning application.

As an early Christmas present, Forefront Estates gave us some detailed plans to consider. Mr Singh suggested that the plans would have excited Brunel. Now Brunel built beautiful structures - you only have to look at the Clifton Suspension Bridge or Paddington Station to see that. These proposals on the other hand look hideous, and I'd suggest that Brunel would only be excited with anger.

I'm no architectural philistine dismissing everything modern in favour of conservation - glass can be a very exciting material to build with. But even the Evening Advertiser - a paper which has gone out of its way to support Mr Singh - recognised that his ideas were out of keeping with the proposal to include Swindon's railway village as part of a World Heritage Site.

My opinions, and indeed those of almost everyone I've spoken to, are based on what the building would look like if permission were given. Yet this is not a valid reason for turning down a planning application. So, what is?

o We could look at the conditions that the planning committee attached to any change of use for the building. Forefront's architects have thought of that - the full plans acknowledge all of them and state how they will work within them;

o We could complain about the mix of uses, and how inappropriate a 100 bedroom hotel would be in the Railway Village. Unfortunately, the planning committee's October decision has already approved this kind of use for the building;

o We could protest that the physical changes to the building will contravene the guidance on Listed Building Consent. No luck here either. Representatives of English Heritage have already said that an owner could remove the flytower (which is in poor repair) without falling foul. Replacing the flytower with one made of glass, and maintaining the rest of the building, in theory, could obtain Listed Building Consent.

There do appear to be a couple of avenues that could result in permission being refused. Firstly in planning terms we could look at traffic management. The plans are quite vague on this, but appear to say that Faringdon Road could be made into a two-way street and the Railway Village turned into a giant car park.

As with most proposals for the Mechanics', car parking just hasn't been adequately considered. I think this alone will suffice as an argument for the committee to reject these plans and send Forefront back to their drawing board.

The second issue is Listed Building Consent. The Mechanics' Institute has a Grade 2* listing, which makes it one of the most valuable buildings in the country. The only reason it has the star rating is thanks to its social-history. The fabric of the building is interesting but the real value of the Mechanics' is what it did historically for the working men and women of Swindon. This plan makes no attempt to acknowledge that and so removes this aspect of the building. I would like to think that this will make English Heritage question whether to give Listed Building Consent.

One thing that this plan does illustrate is that the current architects appear to have no understanding of how to deal with a heritage building. One has to wonder why Forefront severed ties with the original architects Fielden, Clegg Bradley who do have a track record in conservation issues. Indeed in 2002 they reported that there were no commercially viable uses for the Mechanics.'

Mr Singh's proposal is little more than a glorified barn conversion, jazzed up with a bit of glass. If Forefront wants to stick an inappropriate conservatory onto the Mechanics', they'd probably get better value by going to Staybrite!

Five years ago Prince Charles attended a conference at Swindon's Great Western Designer Village to applaud the conservation and reuse of historically important railway buildings. What would his comment be on the proposals for the Mechanics?

I now very much hope that the planning committee ignore the inevitable recommendation from our planning officers and send this plan back from whence it came ­ that is, if they have the guts!