Below the Old Town area of the town of Swindon is an area of land, roughly two and a half miles and consisting of approximately 750 acres. This area is known as the ?Front Garden? and the area?s border is defined by Croft Road, the M4 motorway, the old railway line, as well as the housing in the area of Old Town. The, almost triangular shaped area of land, is more formally known as the ?Southern Development Area? and consists of mainly green boggy land and has very little population in the area, and it is an area prone to flooding, with it being a floodplain. The land is mainly low lying clay land, with it being drained by the River Ray and its tributaries and it has a history of flooding over the last 150 years.
The history of Swindon is a relatively recent one, with the town?s main growth beginning in the 19th Century. There has been a settlement in modern day town of Swindon for a long time. It is referred to in the Domesday Book as Suindune, a name believed to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon words swine and dun meaning 'pig hill', or possibly 'Sweyn's hill' where Sweyn would be the local landlord. However, it was with the industrial revolution where Swindon?s growth began to take off. It first started with the construction of the Wiltshire-Berkshire canal, then the North Wiltshire canal. But the main growth in population and size of the town came started in the 1840?s with the Great Western Railway and railway works for the town. The second major spur in the growth of the town came in the 1950?s with people from London encouraged to move to Swindon, and the construction of the new housing estates such as Walcot, Penhill, and the Parks(North and South), to house the increasing population and the ?London overspill?. Then more recently has come the developments of Freshbrook and Abbey Meads. This population growth, and need for housing is due to higher divorce rates, people living longer and people wanting to live in the countryside and out of the urban sprawl.
With the ever expanding population of Swindon and the growth of the town, Swindon Borough sought to look at the ?Front Garden? as a place of development. This despite it being green belt land and that two thirds of the Front Garden was given to the then Thamesdown Borough Council, on the condition it would not be used for housing development. In 1987 Thamesdown Borough Council said it provided an important visual buffer between the town of Swindon and Wroughton. Incredibly, as recent as May 1997, the now Swindon Borough Council sent out leaflets about protecting open spaces like the Front Garden, and then only the matter of a month later, they made a complete reversal, making the Southern Development Area a priority of development. This may have had been triggered by the fact the Swindon Council had taken the ownership of the land off Wiltshire County Council, and that they realised the potential value in the land if developed could be approximately ?200 million.
The growth of towns like Swindon often follows a theory called the Burgess Model (figure 1) involving concentric rings, where the centre of the town is a commercial area known as the Central Business Plan (CBD), and industry and older housing as the town grows out, and the newest housing further out and on the edge and also out-of-town shopping centres. This is due to the growth of towns and cities outwards. However, there also there is also the option of development of Brownfield sites, where old unused sites are regenerated. There are examples of this in Swindon, with the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet Centre replacing the old railway works. In addition, on the site of the old St Margret?s Hospital there is currently the construction of housing, and the same fate of the old St Joseph?s Upper School. There were calls for the same instead of the Front Garden Development.
The development of Southern Development Area, known now as Wichelstowe, has been met by much opposition by many, one main opposition group being Front Garden Action Group (FRAG). One of the major concerns about the development is its impact on the environment and this is the main objective of my essay.
What impact will the Front garden development have on the environment?
To help answer this I have broken this down into many questions:
- What are the plans?
- What impacts will it have locally?
- Does Swindon need the development?
- What are people?s views on the development?
- What alternative sites are there?
