Public event for housing plans at Abbey Stadium site
The event will be held on Wednesday evening
The two companies behind proposals to knock down the half-rebuilt Abbey Stadium and use the site for housing and community facilities will be available to answer questions on their plans on Wednesday.
Property developer and builder L&G and the owners of the stadium Gaming International are working together on a plan to build 130 houses on the site.
If approved, the houses would cover the southern two-thirds of the stadium plot, butting up to the park and play park on Richardson Road.
The northern half of the site, where a new customer stand for the now-abandoned stadium rebuild was recently put up would, if the plans are granted consent, see a supermarket, community café, a sports club and outdoor leisure and sports facilities put up, as well as a self-storage facility.
This area would be constructed by Gaming International.
The companies have published a website https://landatladylane.co.uk/ which gives details of the proposals.
It calls the stadium: “the former Abbey Stadium” and describes it as “an underutilised piece of brownfield land situated in an area now largely characterised by residential development.”
However, greyhound racing is still being held regularly at the stadium, though that is to end after the final race meeting on December 20 this year.
Speedway has not been hosted at the stadium since the end of the 2019 season in October that year. The Swindon Robins were UK champions that year but have not been able to compete since.
Gaming International is part of the Swindon Motorsports consortium that has brought forward plans to build a new speedway stadium at Studley Grange just over the southern border of Swindon borough near the M4.
A formal planning application has not yet been made but details of the proposals are at swindonmotorports.co.uk.
Gaming International was given planning permission to rebuild the north Swindon stadium with houses to pay for it in 2019 after a dozen years or revisions and applications.
The company said work would start very shortly afterwards but was delayed by the Covid -19 pandemic and lock downs and restrictions of 2020 and 2021.
Between then and late 2024 progress was very slow, but a semblance of a new stadium was just starting to emerge when Gaming International announced that from next year the stadium would have no users.
The public exhibition will be held between 5pm and 8.30pm on Wednesday April 30 at Blunsdon Village Hall in Blunsdon High Street.