Increasing numbers of older people in Swindon might be seen as a challenge to be overcome.

And the man who is currently in charge of making sure our existing elderly people are looked after says it could be “daunting” - but Councillor Brian Ford says an ageing population should be seen as an opportunity to make changes now.

A detailed report into the changing profile of Swindonians over the next 20 years will be presented to Swindon Borough Council’s Adults’ Health, Care and Housing Scrutiny Committee next week.

It says that by 2038 more than 62,000 people in the town could be over 65 - and it would be a quarter of the population. The number of people over 90 could grow by 3,000 in the next two decades, a tripling of today’s figures.

Coun Ford ins the borough council’s member for Adults and is responsible for political direction of services such as social care.

He said: “At the moment we make an equation of being old with being unhealthy, and if things stay like that, then this report does look very daunting.

“But I prefer to take a more optimistic view - let’s use this growth in the older population to make sure that older people are more healthy in the future than they are now.”

The Conservative councillor for Wroughton and Wichelstowe, which already has a significant older population said: “We should be using this report to make sure that we help those people who will be older in the future to be healthier.

“We’ve had the brilliant Beat the Street initiative recently which has done very well. I want my colleagues looking at Highways and planning to make it easier and safer for people to get around Swindon by bicycle and on foot. If you start riding your bike to work or the shops in your 30s or 40s, you won’t stop just because you get to 65. The council has been putting in cycleways to make it easier - and we’d want to do more if we had the money.”

Coun Ford, who is 69, says he plays golf near daily and among a group of 60 golfers all over 55, with some in their 80s and older. He said: “In the last five years there have been four who have died from that group. I’ve lost a couple of stone in the last year or two and feel better now than I did when I was 62 or 63.

“We need to build activity into people’s daily lives and help them be outside, and active and healthy.”

And Coun Ford says his current buzzword is "scale". He added: “Swindon Town do a brilliant thing called Football Fans in Training. They take a group of fans and at the first session they ask them to run up the terrace and often they can't but after 12 weeks they can and they’re much fitter and healthier. But that serves 60 or 90 people a year - I tell my officers - we should do this with 6,000 or 9,000 people - we need to be able to scale it up.

“People are living longer, 30 or 40 years ago 65 would have been seen as old - and medical science can help. But let’s be positive, let’s accept the challenge and make sure that we do have a growing older population, but they grow older healthier."