Coate is place for a university (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Coate is place for a university

IT IS some months since I last wrote concerning the Gateway Development and the provision of a university for Swindon.

Following my last letter I have received a number of letters, telephone calls and emails from those who are opposed and I have also read the proposals from the Swindon Civic Society as well as all the letters in your newspaper.

Apart from some of the letters and email I have received being abusive, which I have ignored, the majority have been in favour of my stance.

I have not been convinced by any of the anti development arguments. I am still 100 per cent supportive of the university development on the favoured site.

The university is as important to the future of Swindon as was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's development of the Rail Works. I want future generations of Swindonians to derive as much benefit from the university as past Swindonians have benefited from the Rail Works.

How would the likes of the Swindon Civic Society have reacted to a proposal in 2005 by Mr Brunel to build a rail works in Swindon?

I would guess that they would have been just as vociferous against the proposal as they are to the Gateway Development. Yet they currently wax lyrical about the old rail works and associated buildings and want to preserve it all even though some of it has no architectural merit.

What disappoints me about those who are opposed to the development is their total disregard for those people who live in the town centre. Their proposal to build the university in the town centre, if it would fit and I do not believe we can build it there all the available space is allocated for other uses.

They want to concrete over every square inch of space, whereas I want to see some of the so called brownfield sites greened to improve the environment of the town centre, that was why I led the protest in the council to the development of the Great Western Forest by the football club. Urban dwellers are just as entitled to open space as those who live in the countryside.

Therefore, I have no hesitation in continuing to support the development of the university on the preferred site. I want a first class world renowned university for Swindon where, we can invite the best students from across the world to study and where they will want to come and some of them to stay and provide new industries for the future of Swindon, it happens in Oxford and Cambridge so it can happen here.

Yes Oxford and Cambridge universities are in the city centre but when they were built they were on the edge. By the end of the next century ours will be in the centre of the City of Swindon and future generations of Swindonians will be wondering what all the fuss was about.

COUNCILLOR B THOMPSON

Swindon