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Swindon

Swindon is a large town and unitary borough authority in the ceremonial county of Wiltshire  in south west England. It is midway between Bristol, 40 miles (64 km) west, and Reading, 40 miles (64 km) east. London is 81 miles (130 km) east.

Swindon railway station is on the line from London, Paddington to Bristol. Swindon Borough Council, is a unitary authority independent of Wiltshire Council since 1997. Residents of Swindon are known as Swindonians. Swindon's motto is "Salubritas et Industria" (health and industry). Swindon was named an Expanded Town under the Town Development Act 1952 and this led to a major increase in its population. In the 2001 census the population of the Swindon urban area was 155,432, while around 184,000 lived in the borough, which includes the large villages of Highworth and Wroughton.

Government

A Swindon-built locomotive (Hagley Hall) on display in the eating area of the McArthur Glen Designer Outlet, Swindon.

The local council was created in 1974 as the Borough of Thamesdown, out of Swindon Borough and Highworth Rural Councils. It was not initially called Swindon, because the borough covers a larger area than the town and encompasses villages and land. It was eventually renamed to Borough of Swindon in 1997, however. The borough became a unitary authority on 1 April 1997, following a review by Local Government Commission for England. The town is therefore no longer under the auspices of Wiltshire Council.

The borough consists of parished and non-parished areas. Parished areas inlcude Bishopstone and Hinton Parva, Blunsdon St Andrew, Castle Eaton, Chiseldon, Covingham, Hannington, Haydon Wick, Highworth, Inglesham, Liddington, South Marston, Stanton Fitzwarren, Stratton St Margaret, Wanborough, Wroughton.

The executive comprises a leader and a cabinet made up from the Conservative Group. The makeup of the council is Conservative 42 councillors, Labour 12, Liberal Democrat 3 and 2 (previously conservative and labour) independents.

Swindon is represented in the national parliament by two MPs. Anne Snelgrove (Labour) was elected for the South Swindon seat in 2005, and Michael Wills, also Labour, has represented North Swindon since 1997. Prior to 1997, there was a single seat for Swindon, although much of what is now in Swindon was then in the Devizes seat.

2001 Boundary Commission Changes: NORTH SWINDON COUNTY CONSTITUENCY (67,106). Eleven wards of the Borough of Swindon:- Abbey Meads, Blunsdon, Covingham and Nythe, Gorse Hill and Pinehurst, Haydon Wick, Highworth, Moredon, Penhill, St Margaret, St Philip, Western. SOUTH SWINDON COUNTY CONSTITUENCY (70,794). Eleven wards of the Borough of Swindon:- Central, Dorcan, Eastcott, Freshbrook and Grange Park, Old Town and Lawn, Parks, Ridgeway, Shaw and Nine Elms, Toothill and Westlea, Walcot, Wroughton and Chiseldon.

Demography

The 2001 census shows there were 180,061 people and 75,154 occupied houses in the Swindon Unitary Authority. The average household size was 2.38 people. The population density was 780/km² (2020.19/mi²). 20.96% of the population were 0–15 years old, 72.80% 16-74, and the remaining 6.24% were 75 years old or over. For every 100 females there were 98.97 males. Approximately 300,000 people live within 20 minutes of Swindon town centre.

The Wilts and Berks Canal near Rushey Platt, Swindon.

It is forecast that there will be a 70,000 (38.9%) increase in Swindon's population by 2026 from the current 180,000, to 250,000. The size of the population and urban area has raised the possibility of city status.

The ethnic make-up of the town was 95.2% white, 1.3% Indian, and 3.5% other. 92.4% were born in the UK, 2.7% in the EU, and 4.9% elsewhere.

The majority of Swindonians (70.3%) identify themselves as Christians. This is followed by those of no religion (19.2%), Muslims (1.0%), Sikhs (0.6%), Hindus (0.6%), other (0.2%) and Jews (0.1%). In addition, 8.0% of people chose not to answer this question in the 2001 census.

Swindon is considered to be a microcosm of the whole United Kingdom in its demography. It has thus been used for market research purposes and trials of new products and services including the ill-fated Mondex electronic money.

In May 2007 65.3% of households in Swindon had broadband Internet access, the highest in the UK, up 5.5% from June 2006.

A 2007 report by Endsleigh Insurance says it was the second safest place to live in the UK, second only to Guildford in Surrey.[30] This was based on the number of insurance claims made and burglaries and accidents reported. Endsleigh said: "Swindon is a great example of where local authorities, working hand in hand with the community, have played a key role in bringing down crime".

Polish community

After the end of World War II, Polish refugees were temporarily housed in barracks at Fairford RAF base about 25 km (15 miles) north. Around 1950 some settled in Scotland and others in Swindon rather than stay in the barracks or hostels they were offered.

The 2001 UK Census found that most of the Polish-born people had stayed or returned after serving with British forces during World War II. Swindon and Nottingham were parts of this settlement. Data from that census showed that 566 Swindonians were Poland-born. Notes to those data read: ‘The Polish Resettlement Act of 1947, which was designed to provide help and support to people who wished to settle here, covered about 190,000 people...at the time Britain did not recognise many of the professional [qualifications] gained overseas...[but] many did find work after the war; some went down the mines, some worked on the land or in steel works. Housing was more of a problem and many Poles were forced to live in barracks previously used for POWs...The first generation took pains to ensure that their children grew up with a strong sense of Polish identity.’

In 2004, NHS planners devising services for senior citizens estimated that 5 percent of Swindon's population were not ‘ethnically British’ and most of those were culturally Polish.

The town's Polish ex-servicemen's club, which had run a football team for 40 years, closed in 2007. Barman Jerzy Trojan blamed the decline of both club and team on the children and grandchildren of the original refugees losing their Polish identity.

Business

Major employers include the Honda car production plant at an old Vickers factory site on the former World War II RAF base of South Marston; BMW/Mini formerly Pressed Steel Fisher in Stratton; mobile phone company Motorola; Dolby Labs; and retailer W H Smith's distribution centre and headquarters. The electronics company Intel has its European head office on the south side of the town. Insurance and financial services companies such as Nationwide Building Society and Zurich Financial Services, the energy company RWE which includes the well known retail brand npower, the fuel card and fleet management company Arval, pharmaceutical companies such as Canada's Patheon and the United States-based Cardinal Health have their UK divisions headquartered in the town. Swindon also has the registered Head Office of the National Trust

Other employers include several of the national Research Councils, the British Computer Society, Alcatel-Lucent, eCommerce provider Shopatron, divisions of Tyco International, consumer goods supplier Reckitt Benckiser, an EMI CD pressing plant that has since closed, and a branch of Becton Dickinson.

Transport

At the junction of two Roman roads, the town has developed over the centuries, with the assistance of the GWR and the canals, into a transport hub. It has two junctions (15 and 16) onto the M4 motorway and is on the ex-GWR main line to London.

Swindon bus operators are Thamesdown and Stagecoach.
The local council acknowledges the need for more car parking as part of its vision for 2010.
Swindon is one of the locations for an innovative scheme called Car share. It was set up as a joint venture between Wiltshire County Council and a private organization which now has over 300,000 members registered. Despite the name, however, it is a carpool or ride-sharing rather than a car share scheme, seeking to link people willing to share transport.

Roundabouts

The town is notable for its roundabouts and there is a calendar featuring a different roundabout each month. The best-known is the 'Magic Roundabout'. This is not one roundabout but five, on at the junction of five roads including Drove Road, Queens Drive and Fleming Way. It is built on the site of Swindon wharf on the abandoned Wilts & Berks Canal, near the County Ground. The official name used to be County Islands, although it was colloquially known as the Magic Roundabout and the name was changed in the late 1990s to match its nickname. The roundabout is the subject of the song English Roundabout from the album English Settlement by local band XTC.


Events

    * Swindon was chosen to be the host of Radio 1's Big Weekend in 2009. The event was held in Lydiard Park over the weekend of 9 and 10 May 2009.
    * The town has a live music scene, venues such as The Beehive, Riffs Bar, The 12 Bar and The Victoria attract local acts as well as touring national acts and host Swindon's annual music festival the Swindon Shuffle. The Oasis Leisure Centre and the County Ground are also used for some of the more major events.
    * The Arts Centre, located in Old Town, is a 212 seater theatre which features music, professional and amateur theatre, nationally-recognised comedians, films, children's events, and one-man shows.
    * The Wyvern Theatre features events in film, comedy, and music.
    * Swindon hosts festivals such as the Swindon Festival of Literature and the annual Swindon Mela (an all-day celebration of South Indian arts and culture) in the Town Gardens — an event which attracts up to 10,000 visitors each year.

Shopping

McArthur Glen Designer Outlet, a shopping complex built within the disused Swindon railway engine works

    * The Brunel Centre and the Parade are shopping areas in the town centre, built along the line of the filled-in Wilts and Berks Canal (where a canal milepost can still be seen).
    * Swindon Tented Market located in the Town Centre, close to the Brunel Centre, was built in 1994. It reopened in October 2009, having been closed for several years.
    * Retail parks include Greenbridge, West Swindon Shopping Centre, Stratton and the Orbital Shopping Park.
    * McArthur Glen Designer Outlet is an indoor shopping mall for reduced price goods (mainly clothing), using the buildings of the disused railway engine works. The outlet is adjacent to the Steam Museum.
    * Craft shops within Studley Grange Craft Village, inside Blooms Garden Centre, just off junction 16 of the M4 motorway.
    * Small specialist shops within BSS House in Cheney Manor Industrial Park and Basepoint Business Centre.

Green spaces

    * Public parks include Lydiard Country Park, Stanton Park, Barbury Castle, Queens Park, Town Gardens and Coate Water.
    * Shaw Community Forest is being developed on the site of a former landfill site in West Swindon.

Other

    * The National Monuments Record Centre, the public archive of English Heritage is based in Swindon.

Media
Print

King George V pulling the 'Bristolian' passenger train at the Swindon Steam Railway Museum.

Swindon has a daily newspaper, the Swindon Advertiser, with daily sales of about 21,000. Other newspapers covering the area include Bristol's daily Western Daily Press and the Swindon Advertisers weekly, the Gazette and Herald. It's All About a free magazine distributed in Swindon 'The Local Buddy' The Wiltshire Ocelot (a free listings magazine), Swindon Star, Hungry Monkeys (a comic), Stratton Outlook, Frequency (an arts and cultural magazine), The Great Swindon Magazine, the Swindon Business News and The Swindon Link (for information on the goings on in Swindon).

Radio

Local radio stations include Heart Wiltshire and Brunel FM in the commercial sector, with BBC Radio Swindon as a publicly funded alternative. An AM station, Classic Gold 936/1161 only includes local programming in the late afternoon. A new community station was launched in March 2008, Swindon 105.5, which is one of the only stations in Swindon to broadcast local content 24/7. On the 9 and 10 May, Swindon held Radio 1's Big Weekend.

Television

Between 1973 and June 2000 Swindon had its own cable television channel. It was called Swindon Viewpoint, a community television project run mainly by enthusiasts from the basement of a Radio Rentals branch on Victoria Road. It was followed by the more commercial Swindon's Local Channel, which included pay-per-view films. NTL (later Virgin Media) took over the channel's parent company, ComTel, and closed the station.

Regional news programmes covering Swindon include Thames Valley Tonight replaced by "Meridian Tonight" for the second time in Feb 2009 and The West Tonight from regional ITV1 stations and South Today (Oxford) and Points West from BBC One's regional variants.

New media

The award-winning SwindonWeb has been online since 1997 and now includes over half-a-million pages of Swindon information incl. what's on, jobs, news, history, A-Z directory, video and features.

Swindon also has two web forum communities producing New Media for the inhabitants of the Borough: Talkswindon and Swindontalk.org

Talkswindon is the larger of the two web communities with over 400 members. Community members attend local events and council meetings before publishing their experiences on the Talkswindon forum. These on-line reports often lead to lengthy debates. Topics include local politics, culture and the environment. In contrast to its larger twin, the Swindontalk forum is more relaxed and focuses more on social activities and local news. The Talkswindon and Swindontalk forums are wholly owned and maintained by their members, membership and use of both forums is free to the public.

SwindonMusic.co.uk is the largest online discussion board regarding local music with over a thousand members. The website acts as a guide to the local music scene with events listings, band profiles and venue information. The website was instrumental in the creation of the now well-established charity festival Swindon Shuffle, as well as being the birthplace for the idea for the Radio One Big Weekend.

Film and television location

The Mechanics Institute (foreground) with the Murray John Tower (background)

    * Swindon was used as a backdrop to a 1994 commercial for Benylin cough medicine. The advert featured a shot of Britain and then zoomed in and cut to aerial views of Swindon, stopping at a bathroom window at 29 Falconscroft, Covingham.

    * The long-running television series Casualty has used Swindon locations for two of its episodes. The Oasis Leisure Centre featured in the 1994 episode "Only The Lonely", and Wroughton Airfield was used to recreate a huge motorway crash in the 1997 episode "The Golden Hour".

    * In 1985 Norman Foster's Renault building in West Swindon appeared in the James Bond film A View to a Kill.

    * In 1999 the Motorola Building in North Swindon was used as a filming location for the James Bond film The World is Not Enough.

Education

Swindon has 53 primary schools, 11 secondary schools and two purpose built sixth-form colleges. Two secondary schools also have an in-house sixth-form.

    * Saint Joseph's Catholic College Business & Enterprise College, holds specialist status.
    * Churchfields School holds dual specialist Science College and Maths and Computing College status.
    * Commonweal School holds specialist Arts College status.
    * Greendown Community School holds dual specialist Sports College and Maths and Computing College status.
    * Nova Hreod College holds dual specialist Science College and Maths and Computing College status.
    * Dorcan Technology College holds specialist Technology College status.
    * Kingsdown School holds specialist Technology College status.
    * Isambard Community School was opened in September 2007 with an intake of only Year 7 (11-12 year olds). It is situated within the mass housing development of Priory Vale.
    * Swindon Academy was established in 2007 and holds specialist status in Science and Business & Enterprise.
    * The Ridgeway School, situated in the nearby village of Wroughton, holds Science Specialist Status. The school also has its own in-house sixth form.

Further education

New College and Swindon College cater for the town's further education and higher education requirements, mainly for 16-21 year olds. Swindon College is one of the largest FE-HE colleges in southwestern England, situated at a purpose-built campus in North Star, Swindon.

University-level education

The University of Bath in Swindon was established in 2000, with its Oakfield Campus in Walcot, east Swindon, although the campus has now closed.

Oxford Brookes University's Ferndale site is based in Swindon, housing its School of Health and Social Care since 1999.

Swindon is the UK's largest centre of population without its own university (by comparison, there are two universities in nearby Bath, which is half Swindon's size). In March 2008 a proposal was put forward by the MP for Swindon South, Anne Snelgrove, for a university-level institution to be established in the town within a decade, culminating in a future 'University of Swindon'. In October 2008, plans were announced for a possible University of Swindon campus to be built in east Swindon to the south of the town's Great Western Hospital, close to the M4-A419 interchange.

Museums and cultural institutions

    * Artsite Ltd. The Post Modern gallery.Contemporary art organisation providing affordable studio space, exhibitions, workshops, education and support for creative people.
    * National Museum of Science & Industry, Wroughton.
    * Railway Village Museum.
    * Richard Jefferies Museum, dedicated to the memory of one of England's most individual writers on nature and the countryside.
    * Steam Railway Museum.
    * Swindon Arts Centre, a 212-seat entertainment venue located in the Old Town of Swindon.
    * Wyvern Theatre, the town's principal stage venue.
    * Swindon Museum and Swindon Art Gallery, next to each other.

Sports
Football

The Stratton Bank

Swindon Town F.C., play in League One (third tier) at the County Ground near Swindon Town centre. They have been Football League members since joining the then new Third Division (southern section) in 1920, and won promotion to the Second Division for the first time in 1963. They won their only major trophy to date, the Football League Cup, in 1969, beating Arsenal 3-1 at Wembley Stadium. They won promotion to the First Division in 1990, but stayed in the Second Division due to financial irregularities, only to reach the top flight (by then the Premier League) three years later. Their spell in the top flight lasted just one season, and then came a second successive relegation. A brief spite saw them promoted at the first attempt as champions of the new Division Two, but they were relegated again four years later and in 2006 fell back into the fourth tier for the first time since 1986, although promotion was gained at the first attempt. Notable former players of the club include John Trollope, Don Rogers, John Moncur, Fraser Digby, Steve White, Duncan Shearer, Paul Bodin, Alan McLoughlin, Paul Rideout, Mike Summerbee, Shaun Taylor and Phil King. Notable former managers include Lou Macari, Ossie Ardiles, Glenn Hoddle, John Gorman, Steve McMahon, Jimmy Quinn (a former player of the club), Colin Todd, Roy Evans (once former Liverpool manager), Andy King, Iffy Onoura (a former player of the club), Dennis Wise and Paul Sturrock.

The town also has two non league clubs: Swindon Supermarine F.C., playing in Southern League Premier Division, and Highworth Town F.C., based in Highworth and playing in the Hellenic League

Motor sports

    * Swindon Robins — a speedway team competing in the Elite League. The team has operated at the Abbey Stadium, Blunsdon since the mid-1949. There are proposals to redevelop the stadium. Speedway operated at a track in the Gorse Hill area of Swindon in the early days of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
    * Foxhill motocross circuit is 6 miles south east of the town and has staged Grand Prix events.