DEVELOPERS and potential investors met to discuss the regeneration of Swindon's town centre.

It comes after opposition councillors asked questions about what would happen to the town centre after the council revealed plans for a new £80 cultural quarter at Kimmerfields

The Conservative administration’s cabinet member for strategic infrastructure and planning Gary Sumner set up workshops to bring together landowners and potential investors to revise the town centre masterplan.

The first meeting included Network Rail, Urban Splash, Homes England, urban housing specialist Barnett Developments and Cubex Urban Development, which builds low- and zero-carbon workspaces.

Coun Sumner said “From this first meeting it is clear that we have a genuine match-making role to play in identifying opportunities to unlock sites and breathe new life into the existing town centre.

“This can deliver a range of housing options and a focussed retail and leisure offer which will sit happily alongside the new employment opportunities and potentially new education provision at the heart of our town.”

The council has long had a policy of trying to encourage more housing in the town centre as a way of changing it from what has been dubbed a retail desert, with empty streets after shops shut.

But Liberal Democrat Stan Pajak, whose ward covers Regent Circus said: “An immediate worry is Zurich’s managing director alluding to the success of working from home amid the pandemic and an understandable rethink of how they operate in the future.

“The town centre is simply not attracting either people or businesses. We need an agreed plan which includes heritage, culture, shopping and homes. This means considering easy options from reducing car park charges to purchasing the Regent Circus shopping site.

“We have been talking about improving our town centre for years while our neighbours such as Bristol and Cheltenham have simply done it. Talk is cheap we need action."

Former Conservative cabinet member for economy and place, Oliver Donachie, now an Independent Tory was scathing, saying: "We will continue to see proposals timed with elections but no action on the ground. This can be most clearly demonstrated by the so-called Snoasis that was plastered all over the council tax booklet but to date not a single spoonful of earth has moved.

"Until a cabinet is assembled of fresh faces with a clear understanding of modern consumer needs and shopping patterns we will continue to get the same stale and statements as they frantically try to offload the responsibility of a respectable town centre to the private sector.”

Labour’s Junab Ali echoed those sentiments, and said: “It’s vital our town centre succeeds.”