Swindon's Regeneration : A Change In The Air

A brooding sky, quiet street and birds circling overhead, give an unsettling feeling on Monday lunchtime.

Demolition sites can be fascinating places, allowing people to act like children and watch big machines crush buildings to dust. But give a change in the weather, a break in work and an absence of people and they can take on a sinister air.

The only sound alongside the breeze was the gentle hiss of the water spray.

With a moody sky, the hulking pile (for it's no longer a tower) of debris where the central tower once stood threw-out odd shapes against the sky. In Edmund Street, the breeze coming down Eastcott Hill rocked the access gates back and forth, squeaking and clattering on it's hinges. Behind the hoarding, the spray was left on, like a leaky steam pipe in a ship's empty boiler room. Small areas of dust would blow around the yard, bouncing off the walls.

On the hill, tables at The Beehive, overlooking the demolition were vacant, and streets were quiet, sitting in a purgatory. The neighbourhood seemed to know it was at a crossing point of eras, with time for the remaining one crumbling away like so much concrete dust.