Council receives first investment after presenting town centre plan in Westminster
The money will go into design work for the railway station
Swindon Borough Council has received its first investment following the ‘Heart of Swindon’ plan’s presentation at the House of Lords in March.
Home England has given £100,000 to the authority which will be used on design work for the redevelopment of the area around the town’s railway station, known as Knowledge Central.
At the event last month, council representatives promoted Swindon’s potential to 170 guests including investors, businesses and the government.
Council leader Jim Robbins told Greatest Hits Radio: “It's always nice just to get that first one over the line so that you can say that something tangible has happened as a result of the event. But there's lots of exciting conversations going on at the moment.”
Meetings with further potential investors and developers are already taking place as well, the Build a Better Swindon policy development and scrutiny committee was told last week.
Some of the projects they are interested in are shovel-ready while others are long-term strategic sites which are set to be phased out over the next five to 10 years.
“I think it'll be a while before some of those maybe come to fruition and we get contracts and things signed on the back of them, but it feels really positive that the event went well. We were really pleased with the people in the room and we've been absolutely delighted with the follow up conversations”, added Cllr Robbins.
“It feels like we had the right people there and that they were suitably impressed by what we had to say about Swindon, that they're seriously having conversations with us now.”
The next step now is an investment prospectus which is currently being drawn up to keep the momentum going.
This prospectus is set to outline investment opportunities around the town, such as the council’s plan to deliver up to 8,000 new homes to support Swindon’s fast growing population.
“Swindon has missed out in the past. There have been regeneration projects in Swindon that haven't come off”, said Cllr Robbins.
“It just feels that now is the time where we've got a really compelling offer to investors that Swindon is ripe for renewal.
“We've managed to get that buy in from the other parties in Swindon, but also from Swindon residents and the businesses in the town centre so everyone has come together at the right time, hopefully, to be able to say now is the time to put some money into Swindon and we can really make a difference.”