Swindon

[Semple]

Swindon OASIS is shut down now, not sure what they're doing with it....

I live in Swindon and have done for 5 years, I moved from Bristol upto here as my wife is from here and is very family focused than me, it's alright but if I was given the choice I'd move back to Bristol... I work for the council and have visited most of the areas here and tbh they're not as bad as people make out, maybe a few years back but now it's just the young ones upto the usual stuff you get everywhere these days....

It's more the lack of any future vision/plan for the town. You'll get anti-social youths wherever you go up and down the country.

IIRC the plan for this indoor ski slope + complex was bought to the table a good 10-15 years ago, plans were given the go-ahead but they couldn't secure an investor to put up the money so the idea got shelved.
It then popped up again maybe 3-4 years ago, and again plans were given the go-ahead, i think this time round they actually did get an investor who was willing to put up the money. And of course covid happened and last i heard the investor had pulled out, so would expect the idea to get shelved again.

The problem is with the town losing big shops and big employers, it's not really a welcoming sight for an investor to plough £100mil into various projects.

As Mysterae says, it's now pretty much a commuter town for trains to Bristol/Reading/London as it's directly on the high-speed line it's got very good links in both directions.

 

[fastwunz]

I've been here for the best part of 29 years. It's changed a lot and mostly for the better. Yes, it's affordable and I love the architecture here, lots of history but it's expanding fast...and I mean fast!

there is that lovely pub in the centre of town - had loads of family parties there - The Landsdowne. Really happy memories of that place and then going back to my wife’s nan and grandads house to play cards and drink port as a family. Miss it. You could do a lot worse than Calne

 

[snips86x]

there is that lovely pub in the centre of town - had loads of family parties there - The Landsdowne. Really happy memories of that place and then going back to my wife’s nan and grandads house to play cards and drink port as a family. Miss it. You could do a lot worse than Calne

That sounds like fun mate, glad it's not all bad being here.
Yeah, could def to worse.

 

[Zefan]

Swindon isn’t very nice but the surrounding villages are lovely.

True. Swindon satellite village gang \o/

As for Swindon proper, it's simultaneously not as bad as, and worse than its reputation. Like others say, it just depends where you are. It's very difficult to generalise as even small areas within larger ones are uncharacteristically nice, for example even when talking about a relatively small place like Old Town there are nice parts and not so nice parts. As said, if you want to play it totally safe stay out of the main town altogether, that's where things flip and it's more a case of bad areas among a good area as opposed to the good areas among the bad of the main town.

 

[Conanius]

I took a job in Swindon in 2014. We looked around and settled on a house in Royal Wootton Bassett. We lived there for just over 2 years. Its a nice area, but the new housing developments are putting strain on what was a 'nice little town'. I moved because of work, I would have happily stayed there.

It was a nice area, but as everyone has said, it is like any major Town - good and bad parts. The outlet village is where we did most of our 'shopping' if we needed to go out anywhere, as yes, the town is dying as are most that aren't filled with little boutiques.

For comparison, I've lived in Stoke, Cheltenham, London (Chelsea, Watford, Battersea, Bromley), and Gloucester.

 

[Johno please?]

People forgot to **** off Walcot, don't live there its a dump.

Town center is dying a slow painful death, the only reason I go there is for the gym (HAHA GOOD JOKE RIGHT) and MnS, which Im sure will **** off at some point.

 

[moon man]

My daughter has just sold her flat in Faringdon and moved to a 3 bed ex show house on the outskirts , they seem to like it there, market town and the foley ect, not my cup of tea around this area, everyone seems to be rushing from a to b and back again, prefer a chilled lifestyle, Oxford nice though

 

[zom247]

I've lived in Chippenham for the past 13 years and I like it here. They are building tons of new houses in the area (NIMBYs fighting hard though) and if you can get into the Cepen Park area then it's a a couple of miles to the M4 J17 and then 25 mins ish to Swindon. Avoid Calne like the plague unless you have a pointy head Only joking, got friends there and it's nice but we picked Chippenham because of the easy access to the M4 for Bristol and Swindon.