A QUESTION mark continues to hover over a town centre development.

The old laundry site in Aylesbury Street close to the train station has been earmarked as the site for shops and 66 flats since 2009.

There is also permission in place to build a Hilton hotel there.

But now the developer is applying for a time extension his flats development, because the original permit would be due to run out next year.

He has vowed he will still regenerate the site, although doesn’t know when.

The Swindon-based developer Jas Gill said: “I’m renewing it just to keep my options open.

“The economy isn’t particularly brilliant for flats. It might change down the road and I might decide to do that. It’s very fluid.”

Asked whether a hotel is the better bet, he said: “It doesn’t give me a 100 per cent guarantee it’s the right venture at the moment. There are too many hotel rooms in Swindon at the moment. It’s a difficult one.

“There’s so much uncertainty out there. Banks aren’t lending. So if you’re trying to find out when or what’s going to happen, I’m in the dark as much as you guys. There’ll definitely be some building work there – flats or a hotel. But whether it’s imminent or not I don’t know.”

Asked about the views of Hilton, which is supposed to run the hotel if and when it ever gets built, he said: “They want to do something, and they want to do it quickly. But they’re not the developer, and they’re not spending the money.”

Ginette Gower from the Swindon Chamber of Commerce said: “The local authority should look at making sure companies keep to what they’ve applied for.

“There should be some sort of clause which says you can’t keep doing that (applying for an extension), because otherwise it will remain like that for years.”

Coun Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawn) has expressed impatience in the past at how long it takes developers to get moving. But this time he said: “I fully support the borough giving him an extension of his planning permission.

“We’ve got to give as much confidence as we can to developers that we’re open for business.

“What’s the alternative? That we go back to the marketplace? And is anybody else going to be interested?

“I would sooner have a bird in the hand, rather than wait to see if someone else comes in. I’d be very much in support of giving him another three years.”