Is the huge cost of parking destroying Swindon town centre?
With charges at £1.70 is it any wonder the heart of Swindon is bleeding?
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“Trade has become very tough; a lot has been to do with people not wanting to pay for parking”
There are some great businesses in Swindon town centre. Real independents who add something special to the mix of national chains that you find in every high street. But you would have to be blind to not realise that the town centre is suffering. A plague of empty shops and even a half-empty shopping centre in the shape of The Brunel Centre. In this respect Swindon is no different to countless other towns up and down the UK who are all suffering due to the changing way people shop.
According to the council this will all be addressed in the next few years by the Heart of Swindon Vision - a plan that will reshape the town centre. You can read all about the plans here. But in the meantime for businesses currently on the ground it’s not a good situation. For them it is the huge parking rates at council-run car parks that add an extra blockade, ensuring customers stay away.
By Jamie Hill (with additional reporting by Amanda Wilkins and Elizabeth Downing)
It now costs £1.70 an hour to park in Swindon town centre.
If you compare this to other areas in the town it really has become a reason to stay away.
Why would you shell out £1.70 for an hour, or even £3.40 for two hours if you really wanted to push the boat out, when you could park for free at the out of town shopping areas of Greenbridge, The Orbital and West Swindon District Centre or even pay £2.50 for five hours’ parking at McArthurglen Designer Outlet?
It simply doesn’t make any financial sense.
One of the biggest issues is that those out of town places all have better offerings than the town centre, especially since big names like Next and Marks and Spencer have all been fleeing the town centre in the past few years but still have units elsewhere in the borough.
We’ve also seen an exodus of supermarkets from the centre, giving people even less reason to venture in. Sainsbury’s left the Brunel Centre four and a half years ago and the short-lived Morrisons at Regent Circus in 2019.
For Sewcraft on Havelock Street the parking charges really are a problem.
Roger Shakles, the business owner, said: “It’s a family business; I took it over 24 years ago and the business has been here 61 years. We’ve been doing very well until the last couple of years. Trade has become very tough; a lot has been to do with people not wanting to pay for parking.
“On top of the parking, we’ve got people who are drunk and doing drugs around the town centre. There are also no shops to come into the town centre for apart from the specialist ones like us. It’s become very hard. The footfall has dropped right off.
“When Marks and Spencer went that was the final nail in the coffin as far as footfall was concerned. We still get people come to see us because they want to see us, but they are put off by the parking charges.
“We’ve been campaigning for years trying to get a free half hour so people could pop in and come to us, but they won’t listen. They reckon they need the money for the young, old people and the vulnerable because the Government cut their money.
“It’s going to be detrimental in the long run, it’s very short sighted.
“As a business owner I’ve never been so disillusioned in my life, it’s very sad at the moment. We will keep going but we are having to make changes to make sure we’re still here in a few years’ time.
“The living wage has gone up 30% in three years and the rates have gone back up. It’s going to cost me £1,000 per month. Each month I’m having to find another thousand pounds and our trade has dropped by 20% last year. It’s just not tenable.”
Ian McCulloch, co-owner of Lollies and More, Sweets Galore in The Brunel Centre, said: “All the charges at the moment seem to be going up and the car park is one of the biggest problems because as soon as people realise how expensive it is to park in the town, they tend to go to The Outlet Village or the Orbital or somewhere on the outskirts, unfortunately.
“Every time that the council think about changing the car park prices in any part of the town centre it is really detrimental to all the businesses.
“People used to love coming into town on Sunday when it was free parking. They came in a bit more because it was free and they wouldn’t actually waste money if they were just having a look around. People used to come in and have a browse. They might not buy anything but at least then they haven’t paid a load of car parking charges for nothing. It was a real bonus to have the Sunday parking for free.
“We don’t feel the council support us. They’re basically out for themselves. If they were supporting the businesses, they would have listened to the businesses and kept the prices low.
“They don’t need to keep putting the prices up because they’re not providing a better service, the car parks are worse than they were.
“Giving them more money doesn’t really help, it just gives them more money to spend on other rubbish which isn’t helping the town centre unfortunately.
“The business is doing okay but it could do better.
“The Brunel car park is a problem. It doesn’t even access the Brunel Centre anymore. There’s no signs up telling you there’s no access to The Brunel. It’s council owned so they should be redirecting people before they even get out of the car.
“We’ve definitely seen a decline in the town centre since they shut that part off, lots of people just turn around and go away again. There aren’t many things in town that you come in for that are a necessity, if you need shopping you go to The Orbital, Greenbridge, or wherever else.”
Anne McCulloch, who co-owns the business. said: “We get told by customers that you can buy clothing in Primark for cheaper than it costs to park in town. As business owners we still have to pay for parking.
“If we had the option we would relocate to a place with free parking, anything that would make it easier to get people to the door.”
For shoppers the constantly rising car parking charges are a real problem.
Shopper Alvin Wu said: “I come into town every week to run errands, I always try to pop into Warhammer or other shops when I’m here.
“I don’t feel great about the parking prices. I had a hard time with £1.60.
“And now with £1.70, I have to sort out change because I don’t like to use the phone system. It’s more hassle.
“I park behind Iceland but the other two have also had price increases.
“It makes me feel rushed. I can be standing here chatting and I think that I want to grab a pasty, but I have to pay quite a bit extra to stay parked. I feel like I’m forced to be rushed every time I’m here which is not a great feeling.
“It's comfortable when I’m here but when I have to leave, I feel like I have to be like Usain Bolt and run back to the car.
“I don’t mind being charged something for parking. If it was free there would be no parking spaces but I don’t know how much more I am willing to pay, especially with everything else going up.”
For the council the car parking charges are a vital income that helps with the ever-pressing need to balance the books.
Cllr Chris Watts, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport, said: “We appreciate and value the feedback from town centre traders and can confirm we are exploring options for varying car parking charges in the town centre, but this is at a very early stage and would have to be assessed against the council’s very challenging financial position.
“We recognise the town centre needs significant investment in order to revitalise it and this will help to increase footfall to benefit all traders, including our independents. This is why we developed our vision for the Heart of Swindon, which we showcased to potential investors at the House of Lords last week.
“There is positive change already underway in the town centre with the improvements to Fleming Way and ambitions for a new town centre entertainment venue, but we need landlords and developers to bring forward key town centre projects. The goal is to stimulate investment, attract high-quality tenants, and encourage new uses for underutilised spaces. But this will take time and there is no quick fix.
“In the meantime, we are doing what we can to make the town centre more vibrant by finding new uses for empty shops such as art studio and exhibition spaces, while also exploring the feasibility of re-establishing the Business Improvement District (BID) for the town centre to enable businesses to collectively invest in improvements, marketing, and security measures.”
In other cities close by like Bath and Oxford, they have introduced a strategy that is decidedly anti-car but this only works as they have also built a public transport infrastructure around it, like park and rides and a good bus service, to support this.
For Swindon, if the council’s vision for the Heart of Swindon is going to be viable and to get that footfall back that the businesses so desperately need, the plans have to go hand in hand with making sure that the centre is accessible.
A few years ago, I remember being insulted on Twitter by a council employee for daring to suggest that the council create a park and ride at one of the motorway junctions serviced by a hop-on hop-off cheap bus or tram system that does a circuit to incorporate the town’s central parts, joining Old Town to the town centre to the train station to the Oasis and to the Outlet Village. I think the expression that was used against me was that I lived in cloud cuckoo land, which was nice.
But something needs to be addressed to ensure that Swindon lives up to its potential. An overhaul of the current car parking situation would be a good start especially if this was accompanied by a well-thought out holistic approach to public transport at the same time.
If you want a ‘Heart of Swindon’ that flourishes you need to ‘entice’ rather than ‘turn away’.
And £1.70 an hour is definitely too much. It might help fill the coffers for the council but to the detriment of the town centre’s businesses - meaning we will see even more empty shops unless things change.
It really is quite simple.
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Making a Scene
A Spotlight on... The Belladonna Treatment
By Dave Franklin of Dancing About Architecture
The backstory to The Belladonna Treatment echoes that of most bands, at least those who come together for the right reasons, i.e. the love of making music. Lee Rath and Jim Harper, guitar and vocals, respectively, have been friends since they were both old enough to toddle. Although their friendship was centred around music, sharing their first gig experience watching Bush at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, The Belladonna Treatment marks their first time in a band together. All good things come to those who wait, I guess.
Other musical waypoints of note on the Belladonna Highway include the questionably named Abortion Helpline, which saw Jim and bassist Ian James united in a common sonic cause, and Hatchets, which Jim also fronted. Perhaps the band that most will recall is the hip-hop, ska, funk, and soul-infused Beatbullyz, of which drummer Stuart Anderson provided the beat under the rather splendid pseudonym Disco Stu. (I remember reviewing their album, Human Nature, and getting battered by their fans over my unfamiliarity with its form and inspirations. I was, I must admit, outside my comfort zone and out of my depth, so the less said about it, the better.)
But that was then, and this is now. And the now is rather remarkable. Although a new band, the five songs that are doing the rounds for public consumption speak volumes. 2023's Pleasure EP did everything that an opening sonic salvo should do; it teased the audience, tested the water, and made you want to know more about the band. Job done! "La Grande" is the sound of gnarly post-punkery dancing with raw indie rock guitars; it's a slower-than-expected beat, adding precisely the right brooding tone. "Sometimes" is more groovesome and pacey, sounding like The Wedding Present covering Bauhaus songs, or vice versa. Either way, it can only be a good thing.
"More or Less a Pleasure" is a low-slung garage-rock salvo, punk-leaning, and the sort of thing that Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers would have physically wrestled you to the ground to get their hands on back in the day if any of them could have mustered up the required energy for physical violence in their perpetual drug fug state. ("Chinese Rocks" was not just an inspired cover; it was a veritable mission statement.)
This debut threesome is the sound of everyone doing their job perfectly. Depth-charge basslines brood and bombard, drums are brilliantly unfussy, using fills and finery sparingly to heighten the energy as and when required, incendiary guitars cut through the groove, incendiary and infectious, and the lyrics are dark and devastating poetry in their own right.
More recently, "The Torture Garden" has a gothic vibe, one that is more March Violets (listen to "Slow Lizard Drip," and you'll see what I mean, or should that hear what I mean?) than the colder and clinical Sisters sound. The current single, "Bits of Elation," is a growling, grooving, urgent, and energetic sonic napalm strike.
It would be too easy just to describe what The Belladonna Treatment does as merely post-punk. You could argue (chronologically) that everything made after 1978 is post-punk, that (historically) the sound never really went away anyway, or that (sonically) it was such a broad camp that the term doesn't mean anything much anyway. Genres huh? They always let you down in the end. But while there are plenty of traces of the more challenging musical structures, the stark lyrical themes, and the retention of punk's initial iconoclastic stance that defined that genre, found here, this is anything but a retrospective trip.
This is the result of classic yet, at the time, perhaps underappreciated sounds being retooled for the modern age. Too many bands turn their back on the past, thinking that whatever went before is old hat or retrospective. The Belladonna Treatment understands that all the heavy lifting has already been done by those who have gone before. All they have to do is take those existing inspirations, innovations, ideas, and sonic imaginations and fit them together in new and exciting ways, add some contemporary sounds, and then barrel over the horizon into a bright new future.
I'm in. Who's coming with me?
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