In the lull between the long wails of the air raid warnings during the Second World War much of the daily work and life in Swindon carried on as normally as could be expected.

In the inner workings of National Government, planning for population mobility was already well under way.

As early as 1940 the Barlow Commission looked into the distribution of the industrial population.

The council in Swindon may have been influenced by both reports, especially the Scott Committee’s report into rural land use of 1941, and in 1943 the new Ministry Of Town And Country Planning appeared and plans began for the development of the urban and rural countryside for after the end of hostilities.

When the war ended these reports and other similar ones fed into the Reith Report on New Towns in 1947.

By now Swindon was facing the fact that most of the military service personnel had returned home and the GWR was anticipating the impact of nationalisation of the railways.

The council of the day had to take some difficult decisions about being a one-industry town based totally on the GWR .

The bubble of the GWR protectionism for Swindon was about to burst under national rationalisation, government planning and the need for social mobility in the second half of the 20th century.

Swindon Council and its town clerk David Murray John, who was later to say that he was only doing his job, became involved with the London County Council and was given the opportunity to take advantage of the Abercrombie Plan.

Sir Leslie Abercrombie, a well respected and far-sighted architect had worked with Sir Edwin Lutyens developing plans for the rebuilding of towns bombed during the war.

He had spent time on the Greater London Plan, which aimed to distribute populations from London to rural and new towns outside the capital, making the economy more sustainable and strategic. The 1952 Town Development Act was able to draw all these strands together.

It gave Swindon Council the opportunity to build new housing estates and to fund and attract in much needed businesses and light industrial manufacturers.

Swindon was more fortunate than other councils as it was asking for the development to take place here.

In other parts of the country the locals were hostile to national Government planning edicts, which they saw as Whitehall foisting dormitory-style towns upon them.

Swindon councillors wanted the money for the jobs and infrastructure to go with dormitory-style housing estates.

Work soon began and Swindon expanded as the rail works contracted. It was not as seamless as that may sound, or as simple, but Swindon grew and absorbed the declining railway workforce, as well as sucking in new inhabitants.

It was providing new and better housing, though I know people in the town will have their own view on that one.

Much of the expansion of Swindon, such as the Beech Road area of Pinehurst, Penhill, Walcot, Moredon and Park North and South owe their origins to the various development plans forged together by the council in the period sometimes referred to as the Lost Decade 1945-1955.

It may be lost to some, but to Swindon plans for a whole new controlled development were hatched.