NORTH Swindon MP Michael Wills says he wants to see Swindon's centre flattened and rebuilt from scratch to ensure it has a vibrant future.

He said the tide of economic and social change will wash Swindon up and leave it stranded and decaying if progress is not made soon with plans to overhaul the town centre.

Mr Wills said: "We're entering a very important moment for Swindon and have a unique window of opportunity to make the town centre something that everyone will enjoy living and working in.

"It's vital we don't waste this opportunity by fiddling around at the edges - we have got to take a radical approach and start again.

"I wouldn't be unhappy if the council decided it wanted to keep none of it and start as if it was a greenfield site."

The New Swindon Company, the organisation charged with the renaissance of Swindon, has unveiled pans to improve the cultural and leisure facilities of the town in four quarters - a retail core, which would include better quality shops and a cinema, a commercial quarter to include a new library, a station gateway to improve Swindon train station and a heritage quarter to develop vacant and run-down land.

But Mr Wills has urged Swindon Council to think big if it wants the town to genuinely compete with its M4 neighbours like Oxford, Reading, Bath and Bristol in terms of pulling power for young professionals, students and families.

He added: "People have got to think big and get behind the NSC, under the excellent leadership of Peter Andrews, and go for the most radical and attractive option because whatever is decided in the next five years Swindon will live with for the next century we must not waste that chance.

"If we're not careful in 30-years the tide of economic social change will leave Swindon stranded and decaying like the once great industrial towns of northern England. We must never sit back and settle for mediocrity or second best.

"If the NSC wants to continue to develop plans that go for the most ambitious options they will have my 100 per cent support. The time for talking is over - we've got to start building our future now."

The rejuvenation of the town centre fits in with several plans currently on the boil. The conundrum of the University of Bath in Swindon - an ambitious proposal to site an 8,000-student campus at Coate - has still to be resolved and the council last month revealed plans to seek World Heritage Status for the historic Railway Village.

Council leader Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawns) said: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs and you can't have development without doing positive things like demolishing buildings it's no good pussyfooting around.

"I agree with Michael totally - I want to see cranes on the skyline, holes in the ground and buildings underway. We're going to have to make some difficult decisions in 2004."

Peter Andrews of the New Swindon Company was unavailable for comment.

Giles Sheldrick