THE owner of the former technical college in Old Town is reassuring the public after work started to demolish part of the building.

Ashfield Land bought the former Swindon College site in 2006 and has started work to build a new leisure and retail complex on the location of the 1960s part of the site, which was demolished last year.

The developer also has planning permission from Swindon Council to convert the Victorian former Technical College, fronting Victoria Road, into office space.

And it was recently granted revised permission to allow this work as a second phase.

However, residents and community groups in the area, including the Swindon Back Garden group and Swindon Civic Voice, were surprised when contractors recently started work to demolish part of the technical college. The whole building has never been listed, despite its historic importance.

James Digby, a director at Ashfield Land, said part of the planning permission allowed for the demolition of a brick extension to the original college building, but stressed that the original structure would be retained.

He said: “There’s a rear extension which never formed part of the main building, the original building. All they’re doing is taking the building back to its original form. That was a later date extension or modern addition, so that’s being removed.”

A Swindon Council spokesman said: “In the planning permission there is consent to remove the small rear extension on the college building, which was not part of the original building. “The contractor is taking the tiles off the roof to enable that work to be carried out.”

Coun Dave Wood (Lib Dem, Eastcott) said: “When slate started to be removed from the roof ahead of this, this caused some concern as no one knew what this meant and many feared the worst. “However, it looks like everything is going according to the consented plans.

“Generally communication has been poor, no one has been keeping residents up to date with what will be happening. “I have asked for a meeting on site to try to persuade construction staff to keep the public better informed.”

Martha Parry, the chairman of Swindon Civic Voice, said the group did not spot the demolition proposal in the planning application, otherwise it would have objected, but the main aim now was to press Swindon Council and the developer to protect what remains of the building from further dilapidation.

She said: “I’m sorry it’s going, I’m sorry we missed it, but my concern is to see if I can flag up the state of the rest of the building and ensure swift action.”

Alex Carter, of Pembroke Street, said the developer had not informed residents about the demolition.

He said: “They should be telling people it’s happening. But I would have thought it would have been a listed building anyway.”

Last month, Coun Garry Perkins, the cabinet member for economy, regeneration and culture, met with Mr Digby and said he was satisfied Ashfield Land would maintain the historic structure and bring it back into use as soon as possible.