Open letter to Swindon councillors

Dear Councillor

We are writing to you in advance of next Thursday's vote on the proposals to block the building of a new stadium for Swindon Town Football Club on the current site of Shaw Tip and the Swindon Community Forest. In doing so, we hope to represent a voice that has not yet been adequately heard in the debate – the voice of the many thousands of fans of the club.

We recognise that the relationship between the club and Swindon Borough Council has not always been as mutually rewarding as perhaps we, and you, would wish, but nonetheless hope that you will recognise that a thriving and successful football club can play a key role in fostering a sense of civic pride in our great town. A town of our size, and with the ambitions so often set out by councillors of all political persuasions, needs a successful professional football club at the heart of the community. Having a decent football club with a team and facilities that the whole town can be proud of, and benefit from, would do substantially more to achieve these aims than, for example, the ill-fated “city status” initiative on which many thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money was spent. Put simply, if you really want to “put Swindon on the map” and give the town something to be proud of, there can be few better ways of achieving this than by working with the Football Club to build a team and stadium we can all be proud of and which other towns can only look on at in envy.

However, as well as being Swindon Town fans, we are also Swindon residents – many of our members (including our chairman!) live in the areas affected – and we are sympathetic to the concerns of residents' groups, so effectively communicated by the Swindon Forest Protection Group (SFPG). Indeed, we invited two leading members of SFPG to speak at our recent members' meeting held to discuss the new stadium proposals and their well-argued case was well received by all present. We are, however, concerned that to date the debate has been not only somewhat one-sided but also conducted in unnecessarily “all-or-nothing” terms – i.e. that the choice is between a valued community forest or bulldozing it to build a stadium. We understand the club have taken much of the public feedback, positive and negative, on board and that the initial proposal has undergone substantial revision to accommodate the many objections which have been raised, such as retaining much of the currently afforested area, while focusing the bulk of the development on land which is still an active landfill site, yet the “public debate” is still being framed as a simple choice between a forest or a stadium. We believe the issue is too complex to be considered within these simple parameters, and that it must be possible to find a compromise, which would allow both a new stadium and a thriving Community Forest, to the benefit of all.

While the initial proposals may well have been unacceptable to many, the club have taken this feedback on board and revised accordingly, yet the debate, such as it is, is still being conducted in simplistic terms. There has been no public examination of the current revised proposals and if the motions proposed on Thursday are passed, no such examination or debate on their merits would be possible. In effect, any debate on a potentially vital part of the town's regeneration would be strangled forever before it could even properly begin. By voting for a blanket ban on any development of any part of the Shaw Tip site, including landfill areas of no amenity value, you would be preventing the people of Swindon from deciding for themselves whether any compromise position is possible. In the normal course of events, the merits or otherwise of the club's revised proposals for a new stadium would be calmly assessed and reviewed in detail when a planning application is submitted. This is the proper time to decide whether the aims of a sustainable Community Forest project are compatible with building a new stadium and associated sports facilities, and indeed where the greater benefit to the people of Swindon as a whole lies. By voting for either of the “blocking” motions proposed on Thursday night you would be stifling this debate, and frustrating the well-recognised due process used to decide such issues.

In short, we would argue that these motions are undemocratic, ill-thought out proposals and would urge you to instead consider the long-term best interests not just of Swindon Town Football Club or Swindon Community Forest, but of Swindon as a whole. Don't close the door now on an idea, which could reap such great benefits for all of Swindon – wait for the proper time, hear out the proposals in full and then make your mind up. Prove to us all, all the people of Swindon, that our councillors really are capable of putting rational, informed decisions in the best interests of all ahead of “here-today, gone-tomorrow” headlines and short-term political opportunism. Do yourselves a favour, do the people of Swindon a favour, and restore our faith in local government.

Yours Sincerely

TrustSTFC