Swindon Borough Council

2025 is set to be a big year for Swindon ⭐ This year the Council will: 👬 Open a new centre for young people at the former Lyndhurst Centre in Park North 🎭 Consider plans for a new town centre entertainment venue 🌲 Plant thousands of trees across the borough All this work is part of the delivery of the Council’s three long-term missions to build a fairer, better and greener Swindon. Read more about the Council’s plans for 2025 on our website: https://lnkd.in/euRdTqsd

🎉 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Happy New Year! 🎉 Wishing everybody a happy and healthy New Year from all of us at Swindon Borough Council! #2025

2024 was a busy year for the Council and the work to deliver our missions to build a fairer, better and greener Swindon. Through the year we’ve had several achievements including: 🏠 Completing a new £34m affordable housing development at Queens Drive was completed 🌳 Holding tree planting events across the Borough ⚽ Teaming up with Swindon Town Football Club to raise awareness of fostering and encourage more people to provide loving homes for children 🗑️Holding a Broadgreen community clean-up to tackle waste and flytipping, making a positive difference to the area 🚲Opening a multi-million pound sporting hub opened in Moredon 🖼️ Public launch of Museum and Art Swindon at the Civic Offices 🗣️ Speaking with residents at Let’s talk Swindon engagement events ♻️Our new recycling separator was installed, sorting plastic and metals to improve the quality of Swindon's recycling 🧡 The Council’s Cabinet agreed a new vision document to guide the future investment needed to help the town centre transition from a past dominated by retail, to a future destination where people live, work, socialise and study Thank you to everyone who supported this important work to make a difference across our local communities 👏

Future-proof your career or fill skills gaps in your business with Skills Bootcamps. Part of the Government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee, these flexible training programmes help people gain practical, job-ready skills in high-demand industries. The short courses, lasting up to 16 weeks, are free for those who are unemployed, looking to change careers, or recruited after completing the programme. Businesses can also use Skills Bootcamps to upskill their staff with subsidies available that will cover up to 90 per cent of the cost. Covering areas like cybersecurity, leadership, and sustainability, the Bootcamps connect participants with local employers. Courses start in January. Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/eitatrpC

Merry Christmas Swindon!🎄⭐ Also, a huge ‘thank you’ to Swindon’s key workers, volunteers and all our colleagues who are still working on Christmas Day, making sure our services continue to run when residents might need them the most.

👇 👇👇 Statement from Council Leader Jim Robbins following the Government's Devolution White Paper setting out plans to widen and deepen devolution across England.

“If Swindon were a company, now would be the time to buy shares in it.” John Davies, Partner at Thrings LLP Thanks to Colette Flowerdew-Kincaid at Insider Media for the feature profiling Swindon in the December edition of South West Business Insider magazine, touching on: 🔷 Plans to spearhead the reinvention of Swindon town centre including a new state-of-the-art entertainment venue 🔷 Panattoni Park Swindon – 7.2 million sq ft of best-in-class logistics, industrial and data centre real estate, set to be built on the former 360-acre Honda site and expected to create 7,000 jobs 🔷 Swindon’s creative sector Swindon ranked fourth in this year’s Demos-PwC Good Growth for Cities Index outperforming London, Manchester and Birmingham, while also coming out ahead of near neighbours Oxford and Reading. Panattoni UK FI Real Estate Management Ltd Business West Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce Arts Council England SevenCapital Allies and Morrison Paddy Bradley MBE Arthur Dallimer Dom Knowles Andrew Wells Jim Robbins Gary Sumner Phil Smith Matt Griffith Huw James GRICE, COLLINS, LONG LIMITED Department for Business and Trade

We are committed to building a fairer Swindon by welcoming people seeking sanctuary. With the combined efforts of residents, local businesses and the Council, we are working to become a more welcoming and inclusive town, where we can learn, embed and share the voices and needs of those seeking sanctuary. In January 2025, we hope to bring local businesses and people with lived experience together to share stories and discuss how the Council and large organisations across Swindon can be more welcoming to people seeking sanctuary. Doing so will help efforts for Swindon to become an officially accredited Borough of Sanctuary. If you have expertise that may help, or represent and organisation that is interested in being part of this journey, we’d like to hear from you. To express interest in supporting the Council’s work, fill out the form here: https://lnkd.in/eSvQhZfX

Attention Swindon businesses! ⚠️ The Council will be hosting an online event to discuss the upcoming budget and how it relates to the wider business community. During this meeting, local businesses will be able to share their views on the proposed budget and tax levels for the upcoming year. Chaired by the Leader of the Council, Councillor Jim Robbins, the meeting will take place on Monday, 23 January, at 2pm via Microsoft Teams. If you’re interested in joining, please email committeeservices@swindon.gov.uk and provide your name and business details. Business owners can also email their views on the budgets to committeeservices@swindon.gov.uk by 10 January. You can find out more about the proposed 25/26 budget here: https://lnkd.in/eBCEn3BN

We’ve been meeting the dedicated volunteers who make a BIG difference in our community 💪 Based in Broadgreen Community Centre, the Harbour Project provides a warm welcome to refugees and asylum seekers when they arrive in Swindon, offering advice and practical help alongside a community cafe and English classes. Councillor Jim Grant, Cabinet Member for Communities and Partnerships, visited their dedicated team of volunteers today, to learn more about what they do. Want to get involved? We’d love to have you on board! Find out more by clicking the link in the comments or email our Live Well Swindon team for other opportunities: volunteer@swindon.gov.uk 🤝 #VolunteerAdvent #FairerSwindon