Public thanked for helping to shape future of Swindon

A borough-wide engagement exercise to help shape Swindon Borough Council’s priorities has been hailed a great success.

Hundreds of people have so far given their views on the draft Swindon Plan through a number of engagement events and via an online engagement hub.

The draft council plan, called the Swindon Plan, was approved by the council’s Cabinet late last year and aims to deliver on the administration’s new three priority missions for the Borough. 

The council says its missions to Reduce Inequality, Build a Better Swindon and Achieve Net Zero underpin its work and drive everything it does. The draft Plan proposed initial activity over the next three years to progress each of the missions.

Residents, businesses and partner organisations have all given feedback on which elements of the draft plan they value most and anything they felt was missing.

Council Leader Cllr Jim Robbins said: “I’d like to thank everyone who gave up their time to give us their thoughts on the draft Swindon Plan, either at one of the community events or via our new online engagement platform.

“I’ve been bowled over by the response we have received so far and it just goes to show that local residents care about Swindon’s future and want to play their part in making it the best place it can be. 

“Over the next month, myself and colleagues will go through all of the comments and ideas we received online and in person, to reshape the new plan. As we received so many comments it will take us longer to bring the final plan back to Cabinet, but it is important that residents’ views are represented in the reshaped document.”

The responses from the engagement workshops and online hub will be analysed and used to develop a final version of the Swindon Plan, which will be shared with the council’s Cabinet in the summer.

To progress the Reduce Inequality mission, the council has committed to improving areas like educational outcomes, reducing falls in older people, tackling obesity and children’s oral health, improving public transport and active travel, as well as working with partners to make Swindon a safer place for adults and young people.

The Build a Better Swindon mission includes a focus on protecting the Borough’s heritage, improving civic engagement and residents’ pride, supporting the growth of businesses and meeting the housing and infrastructure needs of the local population.

To inform the Achieve Net Zero mission, the council plans to produce a road map as well as a monitoring and reporting process to inform its organisational target to reach net zero emissions by 2030. The council also plans to develop Swindon’s on-street electric vehicle charging infrastructure, as part of efforts to support the Borough to reach net zero by the UK-wide target date of 2050.

Although the engagement events have come to a close, the online engagement platform will be open until Friday 9 February, and residents can still get involved and have their say at letstalk.swindon.gov.uk/