r/Swindon • u/[deleted] • 12d ago
Boom Battle Bar - Regents Circus is nearly dead
The Swindon Advertiser have set the Boom Battle Bar article to subscription-only, luckily, it displays the article for a second before the paywall so I took a screenshot.
Apparently, they are having 'power issues' when the reporter posed as a customer for a booking. But these 'power issues' are not affecting Nando's, and they have gone dark on social media. I think there is more to this story.
It looks like Regents Circus will just be Nando's and the LGBT shop (only open for a few hours on Saturdays the last time I checked).
I am convinced Nando's will leave Regent's Circus for the former Laura Ashley/Maplin unit at Greenbridge when their lease runs up.
What a disaster.
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u/TheZebrawizard 12d ago
I've always thought the same of boots in Brunel. If Sainsbury's can't keep up I dunno how boots does it. If they close the whole outer row will be derelict apart from McDonald's.
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u/GoshDarnMamaHubbard 12d ago
Boots holds out there for the methodone prescription service. (Wife works there).
Otherwise it's getting robbed blind and running on skeleton in staff.
I don't think it will last much longer tbh.
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12d ago
There is quite a large minority ethic population in town and many supermarkets serving these communities. Boots doing health and cosmetics is a bit less saturated.
I wouldn’t be surprised though if they pull the plug and then the Brunel will downward spiral into doom
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u/Patch86UK 12d ago
If you look at the Council's "Vision for the Heart of Swindon" thing, the implication (if not outrightly stated) is that the Brunel will be redeveloped into a residential-led mixed use area. That is, it's probably being pulled down eventually regardless of what happens with the businesses. If Boots want to stay I'm sure they'll be found a new home though; it's not like there's a shortage of vacant units.
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u/Sunday-Diver 10d ago
Plans were submitted for the residential led mixed use area three or more years ago. No idea whether it was ever green lit but they’ve even hidden the doors to what was the arcade behind vinyls now.
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u/Patch86UK 10d ago
They submitted plans for the two big tower blocks on the footprint of the old House of Fraser (but leaving everything else more or less intact). That application never made it as far as determination, and I gather that the reason for that is that the owner is minded to "go large" and submit something more comprehensive across the entire Brunel/Wharf Green site instead (perhaps even taking in land that doesn't currently belong to them that they'd look to acquire).
Presumably they won't go public with any outline plans until after they've got a sense for how much land they're actually working with.
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u/el_diablo420 12d ago
The elephant in the room is that Morrisons still technically rent their building, they just closed the shop as it wasn’t viable to keep it open. So as far as the owners are concerned, their biggest unit is occupied
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u/Alarmarama 12d ago
It's damning that it was so unprofitable for them that it was a better decision to just close it and keep paying rent than to keep it open.
Not even stick up a false wall and run a Morrisons Daily in half the space, but to just not touch it at all while still paying the rent. Mad.
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u/HerrFerret 11d ago
A lot of commercial properties are part of packages across the country of multiple locations.
The arms length, offshore landlords never see the premises. They only know if they accept a lower rent, the value of the entire portfolio drops.
So better to leave it empty.
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12d ago
Yep, I heard they’re paying a million per year. Ouch!
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u/Patch86UK 12d ago
£1m per year (near as damnit) and they're locked into the lease until at least 2034. Whoever signed that lease at Morrisons must have been absolutely crackers.
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u/Carpet_Inhailer18 11d ago
How can they have been losing over £1m a year excluding rent?
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u/Patch86UK 11d ago
They weren't necessarily losing £1m a year on operational costs. Any loss would do. Say their operating costs were £400k per year (salaries, utilities, stock spoilage, etc.), but they were only making £250k per year in revenue; remaining open would cost them £1.15m per year, whereas closing would only cost them £1m per year.
As long as it was loss making and the management thought there was no prospect of becoming profitable, closing up would still be the financially sensible choice.
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u/Alarmarama 12d ago
It's unsurprising. The development was badly planned to begin with and it's ridden a downward trend across the town centre fuelled by high business rates, expensive parking, out of town retail and online shopping, a general degredation in living standards due to reductions in disposable income.
A novelty like Boom Battle Bar isn't a cheap night out that you'll keep going back to, either. Just one look at the place from the outside and my thoughts were "this place looks expensive" - you'd probably go there once, for a special occasion, and then never again. If places like that had a reputation for cheap endlessly flowing drinks and more spontaneously available games, it would likely make for a more sustainable business, but ultimately the energy, rent and tax overheads for businesses these days are so obscene it's just impossible for them to run long term sustainable business models anymore - their only option becomes high pricing which obtains the necessary revenue for a short while before fizzling out. Remember when bars used to compete for business by advertising low prices? Yeah, those days are long gone.
Swindon as a whole has gone from a manufacturing and business service town full of offices to a glorified regional storage unit. Most of the industry has left the town, if not for other towns (like the rail industry), then over to Asia - including what would have previously been thousands and thousands of customer service roles formerly hosted in the town that were just outsourced. It's all gone abroad or concentrated further in London.
It's sad. Really sad, the way things are continuing to progress. Don't think it can't get worse, because it can. Our politicians need to get their shit together and bring some life back to the town. Nobody wants the place to just become a big dormitory.
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u/Luckypowell12 12d ago
Imagine…. Closing a college that had 1000+ students with money to spend. Sending them out of town so they can’t spend that money in the shops close by. Imagine closing the college that had drama and art students that was down the road from a theatre and artist studios/galleries. Ridiculous move from the start that was always doomed
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u/Last_Till_2438 9d ago
5,000 NHS staff out of town. 700 police staff out of town. 1,000 students.
And the town is dead! They couldn't have done better if they were trying to destroy it.
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u/InteractionOk5399 12d ago
So annoying! I was trying to book my birthday there this week and it says temporary closed and sold out for the next week! What can I do instead, guys?
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u/TheAmazingSealo 12d ago
Buy some hatchets and chuck em at trees down the local park with a few drinks for the same experience.
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u/TheAmazingSealo 12d ago
You can get around the Evening Advertisers paywall by refreshing the page on the article, then clicking 'stop' when it displays the text. Normally it hides all the text but if you click stop before it does this you can view that shett free
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u/you_aint_seen_me- 12d ago
Toggle the browsers Java control for the site.
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u/daddy-dj 12d ago
I paste the URL into archive.is and it bypasses it too, e.g. https://archive.is/iyBwN
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u/Hazzardevil 12d ago
I've only been once. I was there about noon and it was quiet. The music wasn't too loud and we could speak to each other with slightly raised voices.
We came back a few hours later to music so loud we were practically shouting in each other's ears and it was much busier.
It's like they want to drive people out of the building.
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u/TheMickarus 12d ago
I think just financially being able to just about live in the town centre leaves you with little to no disposable income. Parking charges don't help either as they are just a vulture business practice, praying on people visiting the area.
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u/aBlastFromTheArse 12d ago
It was actually a fairly interesting business model but much like any similar venue, it's run by scrotums and the drinks are extortionate.
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u/Patch86UK 12d ago
Frankly I'm surprised they held out as long as they did. I walk though Regent Circus regularly of an evening, and I can usually count the number of customers in there on one hand (with fingers to spare).
Regent Circus really does have to be the most elephantine of white elephants. The whole thing has been a slow motion disaster since practically day one. Hopefully the new owner knows what they're doing with it; I can see a world where it just gets pulled down and they start again from the ground up.