Favoured site for new Swindon venue named

Swindon Borough Council says the town deserves a new modern venue

Moves to create a "state of the art" performance venue in Swindon look to have taken a step forward.

The town's borough council says it will seek approval at a meeting on 13 November to confirm the site of the theatre and the next steps.

In a social media post on Thursday afternoon, the council said it had earmarked the bus station site at Kimmerfields as "the only suitable site" for the venue ahead of a cabinet meeting in November.

The area offers easy access to Swindon Station and a new bus station on Fleming Way, the authority added.

Stufish Entertainment Architects have produced several artist's impressions of how the site could look

If the site is chosen the council says the next step will be working with prospective operators to "develop a detailed business case" for the venue.

The council said it had taken inspiration from the ABBA Arena in East London.

"The front of house (FOH) area could potentially embrace a similar strategy to the ABBA Arena...the majority of the FOH would be a weather-protected covered area," a report prepared for the October meeting said.

The ABBA Arena is a 3,000-capacity space that was opened in May 2022 to host the ABBA voyage show which features digital avatars of the band on stage.

The Kimmerfield site is close to the Wyvern Theatre, Railway Heritage Area and Old Town, the council report added.

A proposal for the building, drawn up by specialist entertainment architect Stufish, the company which built the ABBA Arena, gives some detail of where it might be and what it might look like.

The estimated cost of construction is just under £35m although, like the details of the proposals in Stufish’s paper, that may very well change by the time a fully worked-up planning application is submitted.

The paper by Stufish shows the entertainment venue would be built on what is now Swindon Bus Station, off Manchester Road, next to the Tri-Centre building complex.

The council said it was taking inspiration from the purpose-built ABBA Arena in London