2,333 were predicted to die

The council team which co-ordinates the town’s response to major incidents, including human diseases like swine flu, said it had considered arrangements for burial sites within Swindon cemeteries.

It also revealed that an initial forecast of the number of mortalities in Swindon was 2,333.

Alistair Ireland, business continuity manager for Swindon Council, said: “That’s part of the forward planning for the council. That’s the site we could have used.

“I wanted the very best for the people here.

“It was going to be dignified and as fast as possible, we would determine the things that people wished us to do.”

He said the plans had also included re-allocating staff from different departments to dig the graves.

These preparations took into account different religions and traditions of burial.

Two years ago, when the emergency response co-ordination team began its planning against swine flu, Government forecasts based on World Health Organisation predictions were a worst case scenario of 2,333 deaths from swine flu in Swindon and 8,500 in Wiltshire.

This was calculated on the presumption that 50 per cent of Swindon’s total population would contract the disease and, from this 50 per cent, 2.5 per cent would die.

Mr Ireland said numbers had fallen dramatically since then and he thought that death figures for flu could actually fall below average this year.

This is because many people have been given Tamiflu and because swine flu has pushed aside other types of flu that in the past might have proved fatal to certain age groups. He added that the vaccination programme would continue.

He said: “Healthy people appear to be dying from swine flu.

“Normal flu affects older people, but a certain number of people dying have no underlying health conditions.”

Since the outbreak of swine flu, Mr Ireland said that the major incident team had developed its links with partners such as the Swindon PCT so less time was wasted on in-house discussions without consulting their partners.