Wichelstowe Sports Hub

Feel there is no need for yet another sporting facility close by for Wichelstowe area. There is already enough sports fields at the Deanery and a short five minute walk over the bridge to Wroughton.
Those fields would be better spend for rewilding to bring a touch of nature back to the area. The impact of the current housing development has already severely impacted the native wildlife in the area, how this was missed by the ecological teams is a joke.
Green fields and forrestry areas are more important to the area than additional sporting pavilions.
Rethink the plan please and improve the area for nature between east and west wichel

We are extremely concerned by these plans especially the flood lighting as this will be visible from houses in Old Town who over look Wichelstowe. There is already a lot of noise, disturbance and strong lighting visible from the academy pitches and these plans will add to this. What plans will there be for keeping noise levels low, turning off flood lighting early etc The area beneath Old Town previously was completly green and now is full of houses, developments. This area should be left to nature for animals, plants and for people to walk in the countryside

I would prefer the improvement to the infrastructure to be a doctors surgery as Wroughton surgery is at breaking point with all these new houses

There is no need for a sports hub. There’s plenty of sports facilities at the deanery. There’s a good cafe in East wichel and another in middle wichel. We were promised open areas between East and middle wichel. Use the money for the doctors surgery we were promised near Waitrose.

The Swans nest in the area of the north of the lake furthest on the left. Floodlighting on the grass pitches just to the left is going to disturb The Swans!

Don't mess with the Swans! Year after year they successfully breed offspring, it would be a shame to impact a natural nesting site.

There are no facilities in Swindon for Pickleball. It would be great if this could be considered. We share tennis and badminton courts. Pickleball is a sport that spans ages and disabilities. It is very inclusive.

A sports hub to the north of East Wichel Way was part of the original Wichelstowe Design Code. As an East Wichel resident, I've no objection to that in principle, and welcome the construction of grassed sports areas. However, I do have concerns about the details.
1) There are already sports facilities nearby at The Deanery Academy that are open to clubs and teams from the community. New facilities at the sports hub should be designed to compliment those facilities at The Deanery, not compete with them.
2) Any cafe should be focused on serving those participating in sports, so as not to compete with other nearby venues.
3) I'm not in favour of community rooms - it isn't a central location for Middle and West Wichel, and would compete with the StoweAway Community centre in East Wichel and with the community centre planned for Canalside.
4) Any flood lighting should be designed such that it's light is not visible from the lakes by East Wichel.
5) The proposed entrance to the car park seems dangerously close to the traffic lights controlling the junction between Foxham Way and East Wichel Way. It would also make the cycle path accessed from the current stub road dangerous to access from Foxham Way.
6) I'm concerned that proposals to 'improve' the landscape to the east of the sports hub will destroy the wildlife there that has developed in the decade since East Wichel was completed.

1) Be innovative - create all-weather play areas that are under a cover/rigid sail; perhaps lend to the farming area it once was and make a simple low-level barn roofed building for the play area.

2) all playing surfaces need to be soft-surfaced, and NOT like East Wichels park of patchy grass/mud intertwined.

3) CCTV or a warden/local group of volunteers to monitor for anti-social behaviour & vandalism.

4) a small cordoned off area for dogs and a rule that ALL dogs (…yes, your ‘well-behaved’ dog too madam), must be on a lead and are not allowed near the sports/play areas at all.

4) the areas mapped are all visited by a lot of wildlife, including multiple deer; please ensure this is a foremost consideration.

5) East Wichel/Wichelstowe benefits/discount/incentive for the local area users.

6) smaller carpark area, to allow more facilities like Padel/pickleball, and that way encourages walking, cycling to the hub - again benefiting locals by not having increased traffic in the area or not being able to use the facilities that booked/used by people not as local that have driven across Swindon to get to.

7) the area often a wind tunnel, so consideration to all weather use/seating eg roof sheltered seating, natural side sheltering such as logs/beams to create mini walls around seats (repurpose any trees that are cut down).

8) mini-road cycling track around the play park to encourage bike use for kids.

9) would an outdoor swimming pool be too much to ask for

If you are building facilities on both sides of the bus lane then you need to do something about slowing the buses down. I would say that it will need a crossing or speed jumps.

Would be great to have a mix of facilities, different to elsewhere in Swindon, particularly catering to late junior and secondary school age children.

I strongly oppose this development. There are no space left for the wildlife. This will significantly impact the environment with light pollution and further eradication of green spaces. There is a sports field already close to the Primary school and more sports fields just a short walk across the motorway bridge towards Ridgeway school. We have a cafe in East Wichel and this would not add anything. Fix the potholes.

Hi, you only talk about all-weather football pitches but there are lots of them in Swindon already, why not make it a 5G pitch so that it can be used for hockey too? There is a thriving hockey scene in Swindon but not many places to play at a high standard so we can't attract higher quality opposition or host high level tournaments. A decent pitch would really help. Swindon Hockey Club has nearly 100 junior players but it is hard to squeeze them onto half a pitch for training because currently we share with the adults so it would be great if we could book a 5G pitch exclusively for the juniors so that we can develop them and encourage more to join. If you don't like football you can play hockey instead and there are lots of children in Swindon in that position. We would need toilets at the pitch for them. Thank you.

Please build provisons for badminton and swimming pool.

Firstly, I’m really pleased this is happening for the local area. I always saw it on the original plans and was curious as to why it hadn’t happened to date. I’d be really keen on football facilities, play zone style activities, kids play areas, a sports cafe, cricket and tennis.

For this to be of real benefit for ALL of the local community, I would strongly urge consideration for facilities (I..e 4G pitch or tennis courts) to be open for free outside of booked times for the local community to use rather than being locked up behind gates.

Too often, facilities such as these only benefit certain groups or those who can afford to pay. And sit empty and unused for large periods of the week.Opening some or all of those ‘empty’ hours up for free play would really encourage local residents to be more active.

My final point is that I would be really keen for there to be opportunity to create new clubs to benefit from these facilities made up of local children. Currently Wichelstowe children for example have to play youth football for Wroughton, Croft or other Swindon clubs. At this stage in the growth of the development it would be great to have Wichelstowe teams with this as a base rather than usage being given over to existing clubs who already utilise other space locally.

The community would need to be given time to set this up rather than a first come first served booking approach.

Why not build a surgery and pharmacy. It would relieve the enormous pressure on Wroughton

please leave the areas for wildlife add trees to it to create a mini wood ie protect the deer that live there also we have sports hubs at deanery , croft and commonweal we dont need anymore also we have the stowaway

I'm a member of a pickleball club that currently plays at delta tennis centre, there are around 40 antendees each week. I'm also aware there are several other clubs currently in operation in Swindon. The facilities are quite old and quite inconvenient as they are not purpose build for pickleball - each session starts with taping out court lines, and we run into issues of fitting the courts on top of the tennis courts as there is not enough space.

It would be amazing to have purpose built facilities as pickleball is an extremely accessible and space efficient sport, that is growing in popularity extremely quickly.

I also think this will encourage people from outside of Swindon as well as inside Swindon to use the facilities, as it will offer something that cannot be found everywhere

Fabulous!
So why wasn't this approach taken with Taylor Wimpey and the Abbey Stadium?

And why can't it be applied to any further application to build on the stadium foot print?

The facilities described do not match the original Wichelstow planning application and S106 agreement. The proposal for flood lit pitches duplicates the facilities already provided at the Deanery which fulfills the requirement of the S106 agreement and which are not fully utilised as it is.