Interesting Fact

Swindon Borough Council was formed in 1997, replacing the former Thamesdown Borough Council. Although it only covers 88.84sq miles, 7% the size of its neighbour Wiltshire Council, it is a more urbanised area, with a population of over 224,000 (compared to 512,000 in Wiltshire Council area).

Responsibilities

Swindon Borough Council responsibilities range from the obvious such as highways maintenance, waste collection, schools, social care and benefits to the less known services such as public health, food safety, libraries, parking, registrars service and many other functions Almost everyone in the community uses a council service every day, we just do so without realising.

Key Roles in Response

The Local Authority tends to cover the areas in incident response many of us forget about. These include, air quality monitoring, evacuations, feeding evacuees, road closures, health outbreaks and modern slavery. Although they are rarely the first on the scene they are always present in the background of any large incident, providing a point of contact for accessing Local Authority resources.