The Conservative leader of Swindon Borough Council has already set his sights ahead after the general election win for his party.

David Renard said he was pleased with the result, if a little tired, after a long night.

And he is hoping the government can move on with its domestic agenda.

He said: “There’s no doubt Brexit has brought paralysis for the last three years. Everybody needs some certainty.

“Businesses have put off making decisions on investment because they didn’t know what was going to happen, and now they can move ahead and make those decisions.”

For the borough council, Mr Renard hopes there will be significant changes on funding, adult social care and infrastructure.

He said: “The first thing is councils need some more clarity on funding. For the last few years we have received one-year funding settlements only, and that makes it very difficult to plan effectively.

“It’s December now, and we haven’t been been able to set a budget yet for next year because we don’t know about a number of things and that’s been very difficult, so that would be my top priority.

“Adult social care is something that also need to be addressed. It’s taking up ever-increasing portions of council budgets and with local tax-payers being expected to fund higher proportions of council budgets, it means we can’t spend the money people want us to spend on their other priorities.”

Coun Renard said he would like local authorities, at least Swindon, to be given more powers: “I’d really like the government to look at devolution again.

"I’d like us to be given more responsibility and more ability to take on those responsibilities. As well as more funding from government, I’d like it to look at whether we could have other more creative approaches to raising funding ourselves. I hope this government can get these things done.”