Next step taken in regeneration of Carriage Works

Swindon Borough Council has asked its own planning department for permission to investigate the state of the next part of the Great Western Railway Carriage Works as a preliminary to its redevelopment and bringing back into use.

The long buildings running along London Street between the railway station and the pedestrian underpass in Emlyn Square date back to the 1870s and are grade II listed.

They lay empty for many years after the closure of the British Rail works in Swindon in the 1980s.

In the last decade significant regeneration has been made: the building now hosts the Work Shed, which hosts space for new start-ups, especially digital businesses and units have been turned into teaching and working spaces for institutes of both the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester and Bath University. Create Studios has also found a new home in the building.

Now the council wants contractors to carry out surveys on the building condition, to look for asbestos and to assess the geo-technical state of the site and building on the West Shed, which is closest to the pedestrian underpass to the rest of the GWR works.

The council’s application says the work is “necessary to inform the detailed design of the next phase of regeneration.”

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