Swindon Borough Council is launching a public consultation on its Draft Local Plan, a strategic document that will shape the town’s development over the next two decades.
The first round of consultation, known as Regulation 18, is scheduled to begin on 1 September and will run for six weeks.
The Local Plan is a statutory requirement under National Planning Policy and must be reviewed every five years. It sets out the vision for how Swindon and the villages will grow.
The new Government has increased Swindon's housing target by 25% so the Local Plan must now identify 1,205 new homes every year for the next 20 years.
There is currently a shortfall of approximately 7,000 homes. The draft Plan proposes to build flats and houses in five clusters: the Central Area, East Wroughton, Pipers Way, Marlowe Avenue and North Tadpole.
The Central Area is earmarked for higher-density, mixed-use developments, and I am gravely concerned about how viable this idea is. Swindon has affordable house prices compared to surrounding areas. Drive 20 minutes outside of Swindon and you can add £100,000 to property values.
We are not Oxford or Reading, who are able to charge over £250,000 for a two-bed flat. Swindon’s prices have remained steady at around £150,000 for the last 10 years. This means that there is simply no money to be made by developers when faced with the additional costs of building up.
We have seen the recent refusal of 700 flats around the Oasis because there is insufficient parking, no affordable housing and would see the council facing a £5m bill to fund schools instead of the developer paying it. The challenges are substantial and unlikely to succeed.
Beyond housing, the Plan addresses the need for employment land, transport infrastructure, and essential services. The Conservatives pushed for Panattoni as the prime site for Swindon at the Honda site, and the local plan now recognises that this was the right approach.
The Conservatives are also advocating further expansion of the GWH or a second hospital site to cope with the growth of the town but this is unfortunately not in the local plan.
I was disappointed to learn of the withdrawal of the Free School Funding for the New Eastern Villages announced under the previous government, which now leaves us short of a 3,000-pupil secondary school and two primary schools. This could be a major blow to the project and for local residents.
I hope that our council leaders push the DfE to resume the schools programme, otherwise who will now pick up the cost – the council taxpayer?
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