BETTER links across the railway line and more leisure destinations are needed to help develop Swindon’s town centre over the next 20 years.

Forward Swindon says these are among the key messages which came out of two invitation-only design events held to support the development of a masterplan for the town.

Allies and Morrison, the architect which has been commissioned to draw up the masterplan, gathered the feedback from events in February.

Participants at the events – one for community stakeholders and interest groups, and one for business and civic leaders – were encouraged to sketch out their ideas to inform a draft masterplan, which will go out to public consultation from mid-May.

Among the areas of consensus were that people felt there needed to be better links across the railway line to improve connectivity between the north and south parts of Swindon.

They said there was a need for more cultural destinations in Swindon and better access to the open spaces in the town.

Another desire was to see improved access between Swindon’s shopping core and the surrounding streets.

Ian Piper, the chief executive of Forward Swindon, said: “These would be the things we know don’t work very well. So it’s heartening to see there was a lot of consensus around these.

“The idea of this process is to get strong agreement about how to plan the next phase of development and regeneration of the town and to do that we need a strong consensus about what the areas are we need to improve.”

Coun Garry Perkins, Swindon Council’s deputy leader, who is also responsible for regeneration, said the council had started to tackle some of the issues.

He said connectivity around the town would be bolstered by improvements to the two railway underpasses in the town centre and the redevelopment of the former Swindon College site.

He said there were plans to build a footbridge over the railway from the roundabout outside Swindon College to just west of the railway station. He said the Davis Place car park would be turned into a green space and there were plans to turn Princes Street car park into a public park.