Business reaction to Stadium proposals

28 April 2004

From: Mark Evans at Nationwide Building Society

To John Doyle, Shaw Forest Protection Group

Dear John,

Thank you for your communication.

As the main sponsor of Swindon Town Football Club and a major employer in the town we of course take a significant interest in the stadium development plans.

However, fundamentally this a matter for the football club, local authorities, developers and the local residents and we will continue to be kept informed of the project's progress by officials at Swindon Town.

St. Modwen Properties Plc and Swindon Town FC will be displaying their initial plans for Swindon Sports Village and the redevelopment of The County Ground, for public comment.

The plans and representatives from St. Modwen and Swindon Town Football Club will be at Roughmoor Social Hall on Thursday 29th April between 2.00pm and 8.00pm and The County Ground on Thursday 6th May between 1.00pm and 8.00pm.



From: John Doyle

To: Mark Evans

Thankyou for taking the time to reply. Very disappointed that a company such as Nationwide, with a commitment to Community and Environment, should produce such robotic copy and dismiss it's self proclaimed responsibility so lightly.

Nationwide, as a neighbour in West Swindon who has contributed 2,200 trees to the Great Western Forest project, who has is sponsoring the Swindon Forest Festival, whose CEO and Deputy CEO publicly profess a love of the countryside and the need to be involved in the community in which Nationwide operates, this is extremely laughable and smacks of corporate stonewalling.

I would guide you to p118, paragraph 3 of Seth Godin's book Unleashing The Ideavirus.

I picked up my children from Brook Field School today - the school next door to the Nationwide Data Centre - and was greeted by a number of children saying they saw my picture in Tuesday's Evening Advertiser and explaining what they were doing to prepare for Saturday's protest against the proposed stadium/sports village. I'm told that the same level of interest, commitment and excitement is being shown by my children's school friends in Peatmoor, Saltway and Shaw Ridge Primary Schools.

I have told a number of my friends and contacts in the IT and Marketing communities and the CIM about how Nationwide's Corporate Sponsorship of STFC looks like it's about to bite Nationwide's other sponsorship and PR efforts and data security in the bum.

The idea that you are sponsoring a football team who plan to build a stadium that will potentially destroy some of your own marketing/PR efforts (the destruction of 46,000 trees and the squashing of 10 years of work to build a community forest) and push crowds towards your secure data centre and still profess that this has nothing to do with you is being met with disbelief and derision!

The inability of Nationwide to realise STFC's proposal for the new stadium runs counter to it's own efforts and refuses to take steps to influence STFC is bordering on total incompetence and I can only imagine that there are several heads being stuck in sand.

As we apply for Tree Protection Orders, review the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 and bring in the Friends of The Earth, the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE), English Nature, the Environmental Law Foundation, the Open Spaces Society, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Town and Country Planning Association and badger the local Labour party with the Deputy Prime Ministers recent launch of the Land Restoration Trust and the Wasteland to Parkland Initiative you can be sure that Nationwide's name will be mentioned time and time again as one of the sponsors, albeit indirectly, of this scandalous proposal.

Should the planned stadium and sports village go ahead, for each deer, badger, owl etc.. killed you can be sure that suitable photos are published indicating that the death was sponsored by Nationwide.

To paraphrase a line a from your own Annual Report :

"....everyday someone suffers from the Nationwide indifference"

I would ask you one last time to reconsider your robotic response and have a Nationwide representative on hand at Roughmoor Social Hall for tomorrows presentation with a suitable positioning statement rather than a corporate handwash.



From: Kevin Fisher

To: Mark Evans, Nationwide

Dear Mr Evans

Thank you very much for your email. It is nice to see that I get a response.

However, in your reply you refer to a Nationwide "position" on the issue. It is not really a position however is it?

Please be aware that should this development go ahead, many thousands of people will have their homes ruined. If you think I am exaggerating, please think about the implications of living 5-15 minutes walk from a football stadium!

Nationwide's name is synonymous with the word "home". Do you really want so many thousands of people to view Nationwide as a principle participant in the destruction of their quality of life?

Your companies "position" below suggests neutrality. Therefore, by implication, should the development go ahead, I would assume you will continue to sponsor STFC. Think about the image this will portray - the thousands of local residents will look on the site with contempt for a generation, what name will they see every day in bold letters across the stadium...not the developer, not the names of the councillors, but NATIONWIDE.

It is clear to me that your company MUST take a position reference the future sponsorship of STFC right now. You should either openly state that such a development will be GOOD for Nationwide and its future sponsorship or you should state you will CANCEL such sponsorship - we the local residents deserve that much of a statement from Nationwide at the very least...don't we?

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