East Wichel, built on the site of Westlecott Farm, is the first part of the Wichelstowe housing development to the south of Swindon. When complete East Wichel will have over 800 houses and flats plus a few shops and offices and a pub. By September 2011, over 400 homes were occupied. Marston’s Taverns intend to open a pub-restaurant in May 2012. The local shopping area is now not expected to open until 2013.
A feature of the development is that restrictions — the ‘Wichelstowe Design Code’ — imposed by the planning authority require most houses to have a different external appearance: no more than two houses in a row look identical. The restrictions also require most houses to be behind a small railed front garden, whilst each parcel of housing must contain some larger houses, some cottage-style houses, and a barn-style apartment building. A couple of other restrictions are that external TV aerials and satellite dishes are not permitted — so the whole estate is linked by fibre‑optic cable — and, once the roads are adopted by the council, street parking will be forbidden in all but a few places.
| East Wichel news | News for East Wichel, that’s not covered elsewhere. This page does not replicate announcements from the groups listed below. |
| East Wichel buses | Bus services serving East Wichel. |
| East Wichel slideshow | Slideshow of photographs showing the development of East Wichel. |
| The Stoweaway | East Wichel Community Group. The group also has a page on Facebook. |
| Wichelstowe | Official website for Wichelstowe, run by the housing developers and Swindon Borough Council. |
| East Wichel Neighbourhood Partnership | East Wichel Community Group. A partnership of Swindon Borough Council, Sovereign Homes and The StoweAway. Meetings are held roughly once every three months. |
| East Wichel Primary School | East Wichel Community Primary School. Opened in temporary buildings at Croft in Old Town for reception year children only, but moved to its new building in East Wichel from September 2011. |
| The Bayberry | Public house due to open in May 2012, run my Marston’s Taverns. |
| komadori’s green corner | Website providing, amongst other things, photographs and commentary on the development of East Wichel, plus even more photographs on flickr. |
| Taylor Wimpey | The main housing developer at East Wichel. |
| Barratt Homes | Other commercial housing developers at East Wichel. Barratt and David Wilson are both trading names of one company, BDW Trading. Bloor Homes completed development and closed their sales office in November 2011. |
| David Wilson Homes | |
| Bloor Homes | |
| Sovereign Living | Affordable housing provider in East Wichel. |
| Thamesdown Transport | Operators of the Number 11 bus service to East Wichel. The buses run between Haydon Wick and East Wichel via Pinehurst, Swindon town centre, Old Town and Pipers Way. |
| Stagecoach Swindon | Operators of the Number 73 bus service to East Wichel.The buses run between Swindon town centre and Wroughton via East Wichel. |
| Wichelstowe 2011 | Photo blog by an East Wichel resident. |
| Seethelight | Suppliers of telephone & broadband services over East Wichel’s optic fibre network. This is a trading name of Independent Service Provider Ltd, an Inexus Group company. |
| Fibre TV to Home | Suppliers radio & television services over East Wichel’s optic fibre network. Replaced Envoy (an Inexus Group company) in 2011. |
| IFNL | Owners of the optic fibre distribution network in East Wichel, an Inexus Group company. |
Contact us at . This page updated 29 April 2012. © most rights reserved.