'Ambitious plans' for town centre as cinema closes

Hundreds of millions of pounds could be spent on breathing new life into Swindon town centre.

Details of the ambitious plan are set to be revealed next month after the council met with land and business owners to discuss a way forward.

The closure of Cineworld in Regent Circus on Sunday led to fresh calls for fewer empty units and more leisure options in the town.

Council leader Jim Robbins said: “We want to make it a more lively place, make it more busy in the evenings and certainly make it a place Swindonians can be proud of.”

Mr Robbins and Swindon South MP Heidi Alexander said they wanted to improve the town centre, which is one of the biggest issues consistently raised with them by residents.

“We’ve got a really exciting plan that we’ll be bringing forward to the full cabinet next month,” said Mr Robbins.

“It’s a really tricky time for high streets across the country. There has been a real change in shopping habits, in retail, in office work and that’s why we’re bringing forward this new plan.”

When asked how much it might cost, Mr Robbins told BBC Radio Wiltshire: “It’s really hard to put a figure on it, we’re not sure exactly what the changes will be, but certainly it will be significant investment.

“We are talking hundreds of millions of pounds. There is lots of work for us to do with investors to really sell the concept of Swindon and talk up the possibilities of what we can create here.”

Fellow Labour member Ms Alexander is in the process of setting up her Town Centre Task Force, with a focus on shorter-term goals.

“I want to talk to the owners of empty shops about how we get them back into use - temporary uses, pop-up shops,” she said.

“An early success would be many fewer empty shops in the centre.”

The closure of Cineworld leaves two of the biggest units in the Regent Circus complex sitting empty just nine years after it opened.

Morrisons closed its doors there in November 2019 and the store has not been occupied since.

Kris Talikowski, chairman of the Old Town Business Association, said he would like to see it reopen as a music venue.

“Look at places like Wapping Wharf in Bristol," he said.

"It's a micro area made out of shipping containers for food and beverage and retail - and a huge amount of other economic activity popped up around that.

“That’s the kind of inventive thinking we need in Swindon. There is appetite for it. It’s just engaging the right people to make it happen.”

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