New photos of a well-known town centre landmark show it continuing to deteriorate six years after it was closed.

Market Hall, off Commercial Road, known by most as the Tented Market, has been left languishing and abandoned since its closure in 2017. 

In the six years since, it has become a target for graffiti tagging, vandalism and other anti-social behaviour and new pictures show it is currently in a sorry state. 

But what does the future hold for the building that has been a part of the town's main shopping area since it was built in 1994?

Well, the market itself, once full of local businesses like butchers, cafes, barbers, and clothing stalls, has been set to be demolished pretty much since its closure, with the land to be repurposed as something else entirely. 

London development company CJV Properties has submitted multiple planning applications to redevelop the land.

It initially made a planning application in 2015 to build 4 restaurants and a coffee shop and this went before Swindon Borough Council’s Planning Committee in June 2016 and was refused.

A revised scheme was submitted to the Council in April 2017, for an 8 to 15-storey building comprising 101 flats with A3 and A1 retail units on the ground floor. This was approved by the Council’s planning committee in October 2017, months after the closure of the market itself. 

In 2019 CJV made a new application to demolish the market building and replace it with a two-storey complex which can house a shop, restaurants and cafes, with a tower up to 10 storeys high featuring 68 flats.

It also put in an application for the same two-storey complex without the tower.

Speaking about the scheme around this time, Chris Moore, managing director of NC Architects, which designed it said: “Lots of development plans are struggling. Partly it’s the uncertainty over Brexit, which has affected land prices, and there is an oversupply of flats in the town centre.

“We’re trying to make sure that if things change, and we have to assume that this uncertainty won’t go on forever, that there’s a plan that’s viable now and in the future.”

Both of these applications were approved by Swindon Borough Council's planning committee during a meeting in December 2020.

But, despite having several approved planning applications for the site, nothing has been done there in the three years since the latest application was given the green light.