THE LEADER of the council has said that Swindon could lead the UK out of recession in terms of Regeneration.

He was speaking for the first time in three years to the Swindon Civic Voice – a voluntary organisation aimed at improving the quality of urban life.

Coun Rod Bluh said that with the new regeneration plans for the town Swindon would be at the top of regeneration in the UK.

He said: “The future is ours to make, the momentum is with us with the college site now underway. I am told we would be leading the UK out of recession in terms of regeneration.

“We would be at the top because no one else is doing anything. If we can’t do it in Swindon they will struggle to do it elsewhere.”

The Tory leader has said that the recession had a big impact on the development of the town centre but he now hopes that the town is turning the corner.

He said: “The financial crisis we have just been through has had a big impact and the whole thing has been deeply frustrating and upsetting.The amount of effort that went in to getting the plans together, it was not easy to see it hit the buffers over night.”

He added that Swindon was left behind in the 90s when it should have been developing in the economic boom.

He said: “The tragedy of Swindon to me is that it didn’t do it in the 90s. That’s when they should have done it, that is when everyone else did it. Swindon has been playing catch up ever since.”

Speaking days after planning permission was granted for a new £100m development on the old college site, Coun Bluh said the town needed to start building bit by bit.

He added: “Regeneration hasn’t gone wrong and it isn’t in tatters, it may have been damaged but it is alive and in the last few months it has started to move.

“Yes the Modus retail scheme has been lost, that for me was the most upsetting, and the college scheme has been scaled back.

“In terms of going forward, it is seeing what we need and doing it in smaller bits but that all adds up to greater impact. I’m not underestimating the scale of the task.”

Coun Bluh also stated that the £75m scheme to get the canal running through Swindon could still be the iconic structure needed to make Swindon unique and attract visitors.

He said: “If I had a magic wand, I’d make it happen tomorrow. It could change the centre of Swindon in no way anything else could.

“We have all the important buildings running along it that would make it one of the best town centre canals in the country. There is no regeneration scheme in the country that doesn’t have a major water component to it. Water is the glue that holds everything together.

“It is there the only question is whether it will come through Swindon. It will either bypass us or we can use some imagination.