Council continues to deliver for residents through its Swindon Plan

Others include kickstarting plans to redevelop Swindon’s train station and the rollout of a £30m programme to improve the energy efficiency of council homes.

All three projects come under Swindon Borough Council’s three long-term missions to build a Fairer, Better and Greener Swindon.

Councillors will be given an update on the progress of the Council’s Swindon Plan and its missions at next week’s Cabinet meeting (3 Dec).

Since the start of the year, the Fairer mission has seen the opening of a brand-new youth centre, The Base, in Park North, the launch of a borough-wide Skills Strategy, the opening of a new SEND unit in Penhill and a hugely successful programme to combat tooth decay with more than 1,900 young people now benefiting from supervised tooth-brushing programmes in local schools.

The Better mission, meanwhile, has seen the completion and opening of the new bus interchange and public realm improvements at Fleming Way, design work on the transformation of Swindon train station and the surrounding land, the formation of Swindon Culture Collective and the announcement of major investment in advanced manufacturing by leading drone companies.

A new Decarbonisation Framework will also be discussed at next week’s Cabinet meeting as part of the Greener Mission, while 10,000 trees were planted under the Trees for Climate programme.

Although the majority of the measures are on track, councillors will be updated on those that still require additional work.

Performance against the Swindon Plan is reviewed regularly by the Council’s Corporate Directors with Mission Boards providing further scrutiny and assurance against performance, along with the Council’s Policy and Performance Committees.

Councillor Jim Robbins, Leader of Swindon Borough Council, said: “The Swindon Plan is at the heart of everything we do as an organisation and I’m incredibly proud of what we have managed to achieve this year on behalf of local residents, despite the financial challenges we have faced.

“We’ve opened a brand-new youth centre, a new SEND provision, a new bus interchange, launched our town centre vision at the House of Lords, helped attract millions of pounds in investment and hundreds of jobs, not to mention bringing home the Swindon Croc!

“As an organisation the Council provides hundreds of services and it is sometimes easy to forget all the good work that goes on. I am looking forward to presenting the Swindon Plan update to Cabinet next week where we can celebrate the successes, while at the same time focus on where we need to improve.”