Giving Swindonians a greater sense of pride in their town and borough might be a challenge – but it’s one the borough council will take on, said the authority’s leader David Renard.
Coun Renard was speaking about the authority’s benchmarking of how Swindon does against central government’s 12 “Levelling Up Missions” at a meeting of the council's scrutiny meeting.
Among aspirations for improvements in employment, public transport and educational performance, a sense of pride is included in those missions: “By 2030, pride in place, such as people’s satisfaction with their town centre and engagement in local culture and community, will have risen in every area of the UK, with the gap between the top performing and other areas closing.”
There were no figures for how much pride Swindonians feel – but the council’s report said 79 per cent of people in England are “very or fairly satisfied” with the place that they live.
Chairman of the scrutiny committee, Labour councillor Kevin Small, himself a native Swindonian, said to Coun Renard: “Most of us will have a moan about things at times, and perhaps especially those of us who’ve lived here all our lives.
“How do we get people to take more pride in their town and coming from here?”
Coun Renard suggested that there seemed to be a particular issue with Swindon. He said: “If you compare Swindon with Stoke-on-Trent, then on many of these measures Swindon is objectively better than Stoke.
“But the pride people have in Stoke is significantly more than what we see here.”
And Coun Renard said it was frequently native Swindonians who took, ort at least expressed, the dimmest view of their town: “Often those who were born and bred here who seem to have less pride than those people who have moved to the area and who have built a really good life here.”
The government’s mission to create a sense of pride was linked to the existing borough council priorities and pledges to: “Build an economy that works for you: creating more well-paid jobs, attracting further investment in our town and making Swindon a great place to start and grow businesses.” And to “Protect and enhance our heritage, cultural and leisure facilities: delivering improvements now and securing long-term investment.”
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