Will Swindon's council tax payers have to pay for this stadium?

West Swindon Councillor Nick Martin (for Shaw & Nine Elms) outlines the problems of financing a new stadium.


There are dozens of reasons why destroying Shaw Community Forest to build a stadium is an awful idea. However, I have been asked to summarize the financial puzzle and explain why residents may be forced to fund the multi-million pound scheme and councillors may be taken to court and fined.

Three years ago the football club proposed a new stadium near Junction 16. This sounded an excellent idea, but the stadium was to be owned by an investment company associated with Swindon Town FC and the money was to be found by allowing this company to buy and sell Swindon Council land at a huge profit.

Effectively the Council would have been giving millions of pounds away and councillors might well have been prosecuted. When the members understood their personal risk the scheme was dropped, the investment company left town and the football club went into financial administration.

Today, financial support for the stadium is a mystery but St. Modwen Properties plc are very keen to promote the scheme and some facts do exist:

1. Swindon Town FC has no money to build its own stadium;

2. Swindon Town don't own the County Ground stadium;

3. The County Ground and the adjacent athletics track is owned by Swindon Borough Council (the council tax payer);

4. Shaw Community Forest Country Park and the tip land north of Barnfield Road depot is all owned by Swindon Borough Council;

5. St. Modwen Properties plc state that they will not invest any money in Swindon;

6. St. Modwen Properties plc also state that they 'do not come cheap.' It therefore seems that they charge substantial commission on the property deals that they arrange;

7. Swindon Council own 90 per cent of the land under discussion and don't require St. Modwen Properties plc to teach them how to make money by giving planning permission on farmland or brown-field sites;

8. If by some miracle it was safe to build on the Shaw Community Forest the Council would have to give planning permission for the development. This would raise the land value from £3,000 per acre to £1,000,000 and this massive development gain should belong to the Swindon council taxpayer and not to St Modwen;

9. It is alleged that St Modwen wish to be given a long term lease on the Community Forest land and planning approval for development!;

10. My advisers tell me that Swindon Borough Council has no legal authority to fund private football clubs or property speculators and that any action that effectively gives council tax payers money away will lead to the prosecution and legal surcharge (to be heavily fined) of those involved.

So, in summary, every aspect of this development scheme points to money that rightfully belongs to the taxpayer ending up in developer's pockets. I cannot support such a project and neither can my fellow West Swindon councillors.

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