Ref. 30179-85SWINDON Council was pushing Shaw Forest as a site for the new football stadium while boasting about its importance as a green space for the town, it has been revealed.

Thousands of trees had already been planted at Shaw Forest when the then council leader Sue Bates pinpointed the site as a potential new home for Swindon Town in 2002.

The council continued to sing the forest's praises as an important green lung for the town knowing that developers were looking to bulldoze and concrete the 100 hectares of forest.

The authority's actions at the time have been criticised by campaigners from the Swindon Forest Protection Group.

But current council leader Mike Bawden said that he believes that Coun Bates would have been acting in good faith.

The council was shortlisted for a national award for its work in transforming the former landfill site into a community forest of which the town could be proud.

It had been earmarked as a project of national significance in 1994 and 43,000 trees had been planted there.

At the time, Coun Bates said: "To be shortlisted for this award is a tremendous achievement not just for councillors, but also the officers who have put time and effort into the restoration of Shaw Tip."

The council talked of making the forest home to 200,000 oak and ash trees by 2007.

But the Adver has learned that officers visited the site in July 2002 and entered into discussions with Swindon Town representatives and St Modwen, the developers.

This was one week after Swindon Town's previous stadium plans for the Front Garden fell by the wayside.

Council contractors have planted around 3,000 trees since the summer of 2002 as part of the ongoing scheme to transform the landfill site into a community forest.

Earlier this year, Swindon Town chief executive Mark Devlin said that several sites had been looked at and one was favoured above the others.

He said that both the council and the Highways Agency also felt it met their criteria.

After the club went into administration in 2002, it made no secret of the fact that its long-term prosperity lay in moving out of the County Ground to a modern stadium.

It then became public on March 19 this year that the Shaw Forest had been pinpointed as the potential home of a 22,000 all-seater stadium and an extensive sports village complex.

The Adver has tried to contact Sue Bates, who has left the Swindon area, but we have had no response.

Emma-Kate Lidbury