Digging Deep! 

Work begins at the £50m Churchward site

 

Huge development underway: £50m to be spent on Churchward site

Credit Crunch - the two words on everyone's lips at the moment. But for one company in Swindon, it looks to be business as usual.

 

Thomas Homes, the company responsible for building 245 apartments at the old railway engineering yards at 

Churchward (next to the Outlet Centre), are well under way with their plans for a £50m development.

 

Planning permission for apartments, offices and a hotel already is granted, with work continuing at a steady pace -proving that the regeneration of Swindon can still take hold despite the poor state of today's economy.

 

Chris Brotherton, Land Director for Thomas Homes, said: "Churchward Village provides an exciting opportunity for Thomas Homes to make use of our extensive expertise in urban redevelopment and conversion of old buildings in an excellent location in central Swindon."

 

The current plans are seen as the final piece in the jigsaw for the former Works site, following a gradual redevelopment since the railworks shut its doors in 1986. 

 

A piece of history

 

In 1994, the National Monuments Record Centre – NMRC - were the first to occupy the then-empty former General Offices of the Great Western Railway after 2 years of conversion work.

The Swindon Designer Outlet Centre arrived in 1997, with the Steam Museum opening its doors in 2000. The National Trust moved its HQ here to the purpose-built Heelis Building on the site in 2005.

 

Churchward Village is named after George Jackson Churchward, chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway from 1902-1921 (see link below).

 

Churchward site - gallery