Labour Councillors representing the Liden area are asking whether Liden Centre will ever see the promised improvements to Liden Village Centre.
In February 2012 the then Conservative Council Leader, Rod Bluh, announced 'Swindon Council plans to spend £900,000 over two years on centres at Eldene, Liden, Covingham Square, Freshbrook, Toothill and Guildford Avenue' (Swindon Advertiser, February 2012).
The following year, the Conservative administration agreed to reduce the budget to £450,000 (Swindon Advertiser, October 2013) Toothill and Eldene were removed from the scheme.
In 2014 Labour’s Liden Councillors were given assurances that the improvements would be coming soon and yet nothing happened.
Now following a question at the Full Council Meeting on Thursday 8th November from Councillor Fay Howard, the Cabinet Member responsible for the Village Centre Improvement said that the improvements to Liden Centre would be dependent on the Council’s emerging Libraries Strategy.
Liden, Eldene and Park South Councillors, Fay Howard, Derique Montaut and Chris Watts are calling on the Conservative Council to come clean about plans for Liden Centre.
The Liden, Eldene & Park South Councillors issued a joint statement. It said:
“After more than four years of broken promise after broken promise, I am saddened that the Liden Centre improvements are now dependent on the Council’s emerging libraries strategy. The other village centres have all seen improvements yet Liden remains waiting. Eldene didn’t even get any funding for village centre improvements despite originally being promised funding. The residents are left waiting and are quite rightly frustrated. It is not good enough.
We’d now like the Conservative Cabinet to do what they promised as far back as 2012, and fund much welcomed improvements to the Liden Centre.”