The disagreement followed an interview with Swindon24 in which Cllr Chandler said the Conservatives would replace Labour’s vision with a new council strategy. He described the previous administration’s “better, greener and fairer” missions as “incredibly vague” and said the new leadership wanted to focus on “the tangibles that really help people”.
His remarks drew criticism from Labour group leader Councillor Jim Robbins, who claimed the deputy leader had confused the council’s political strategy with the long-term Heart of Swindon regeneration plan.
“It appears that he’s misunderstood which plan he was talking about,” Cllr Robbins said.
“It’s really disappointing that the deputy leader of the council clearly doesn’t know the difference.”
Responding to the criticism, Cllr Vallender said the confusion stemmed from several council documents having similar names and insisted the Conservatives remain committed to the Heart of Swindon regeneration strategy.
“I think the reality is that it was just a simple mix-up between there’s multiple plans that have all got very similar-sounding names,” he said.
Cllr Vallender explained that the administration intends to replace Labour’s four-year Council Plan, previously known as the Swindon Plan, with a new set of Conservative priorities.
However, he said the Heart of Swindon strategy, which sets out the long-term vision for regenerating the town centre, will remain largely unchanged.
“The content of the Heart of Swindon we broadly agree with,” he said. The actual detail of Heart of Swindon isn’t going to be changing.”
He said the document would instead be refreshed once the council agrees its own strategy next February, with the introduction updated to reflect the new administration’s priorities rather than Labour’s “better, greener and fairer” approach.
Speaking about the Conservatives’ first weeks in office, Cllr Vallender said work was already progressing across a number of major projects.
“It’s a massive portfolio and it covers a huge variety of what the council does,” he said.
He said one of the first visible changes would be a town centre clean-up programme due to begin at the end of August.
“We’ve been able to hit the ground running with things like the big town centre clean-up coming at the end of August,” he said.
Cllr Vallender also said preparations for Swindon’s UK City of Culture bid were continuing at pace ahead of an August deadline.
“We are full steam ahead with the City of Culture bid. We’ve got a very tight August deadline and I’ve been engaging with businesses and culture organisations to help build that support,” he said.
He added that regeneration schemes across the town centre remain a priority but acknowledged they would take longer because of complex private land ownership arrangements.
“We are already looking at the larger regeneration projects in the town centre,” he said.
“That is a much slower timeframe and is much more complicated because of all the private land ownership issues.”
He confirmed that work on improvements to Fleet Street and Bridge Street is continuing, with further announcements expected soon. Progress is also being made on proposals for a new entertainment venue.
“It’s then the new entertainment venue and proceeding with that business case to see if the numbers stack up, so we can crack on with proceeding with that as well,” he said.
Cllr Vallender also reaffirmed the administration’s decision to scrap plans for housing at Highworth Golf Course.
He said proposals for around 700 homes, along with a later reduced scheme, had both been abandoned in favour of creating a country park.
“We are now looking to declare Highworth Golf Course a country park,” he said.
“We are going to be having discussions with Highworth Town Council, the Save the Golf Course Action Group, and looking at how we can now deliver a country park.”
Looking ahead, Cllr Vallender said improving the appearance of the town centre would be one of the administration’s immediate priorities.
“If we want to have an improved town centre, we’ve got to start with the basics,” he said.
“It’s about trying to lift that public realm because if things start to look better, you attract more businesses.”
While acknowledging that major regeneration schemes would take years to complete, he said residents could expect further announcements in the coming months.
“We will have some, hopefully, some good news very soon on quite a few of those,” he said.
“There will be some very good wins coming out in the next month to three months.”
