Green shoots of recovery in Swindon

IT'S a wet and grey Friday morning in Swindon. As I look out of my hotel room in the town centre, labourers are toiling among clinging mud as JCB diggers carve out huge swathes of land to lay the foundations for the £350million Union Square project.

This is where the old police station was once situated and the project, which began earlier this year, will regenerate this part of town with new offices and a car park. Okay, not the most exciting of projects but it is progress on a piece of land which has lain dormant for many years.

Just up the road at Regents Circus, the eyesore that was the old Swindon College building has, after many years of wrangling, finally been demolished. Driving past the barren site last night, it was amazing how much lighter the area was and how the view had changed. Within two years, this £50million project should see a new six-screen cinema, a Morrison's sore, eight restaurants and another car park!

When I was working in Swindon there was a lot of talk about these regeneration projects. The trouble was, deep in recession, nothing was moving. Fine words, but no deeds.

Now, even though the economy continues to lurch from crisis to crisis here we are seeing real progress. Swindon is a bit of planning hot-potch and would certainly not win any architectural awards, but what is happening in front of me, amidst the cloying mud of Union Sqaure demonstrates progress.

I'm currently reading a book about the poet Sir John Betjeman, who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1972, and who had close links with Wiltshire which figured in many guises in his work as a broadcaster, writer and poet.

Although Betjeman, who was a bit of an architectural snob, wrote of M4 neighbour Slough:

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

... yet.he had a soft spot for Swindon, especially the historical parts around Old Town and also the old Railway Village.

In fact, in 1962 Betjeman wrote how he had come to love Swindon because of its people, although he felt very dubious about the look of the new housing estates. He wrote then: "There aren't enough playing fields yet, it seems, for the children. Everything looks impersonal, though it's well meant. Is this Swindon?"

I've got a soft spot for Swindon for so many reasons, but it's people primarily. When you mention Swindon to outsiders, you can see sneer stretch across their faces. They've never visited the place, it's insinuation by reputation. But it is a town where things are happening.

Swindon will never compete with the likes of Oxford or Bath in terms of historical importance, it will struggle with the likes of Bristol and even Reading as a haven for shoppers, but as a commercial proposition for investors, Swindon is in the Premier League.

Here we have a go-ahead town which has traditionally bucked economic downturns. Here is a place which is perhaps beginning to show small green shoots of recovery and so the vision in front of my hotel window this grey Friday morning is a bright one.