THIS week I was invited to speak at a special event at the Conservative Party Conference to talk about how Swindon is responding to the challenges of increasing its housing supply.

The talk was organised by Centre for Cities and the London School of Economics and Political Science and focused on, among other things, a new report that says that two million climate-friendly homes with good infrastructure could be built near commuter stations to go some way towards solving the national housing crisis.

Here in Swindon we have a positive story to tell around our own plans to build new homes to reach government housing targets. The recent electrification of the Great Western Mainline with faster journey times into London makes Swindon an even more attractive proposition for people looking for cheaper homes outside of the capital, while maintaining a quick and easy route into work.

The council itself is looking to increase the amount of housing in the town centre close to the railway station as part of the Kimmerfields development as we recognise the need to provide new homes for commuters. More people living in the town centre will help boost the local economy and is part of our strategy to help breathe new life into the High Street.

I never tire of telling people what a great place Swindon is to live and work and this week’s party conference was a perfect opportunity to bang the drum for our town.

I was therefore immensely proud to discover on Monday at the Chancellor’s address that Swindon will benefit from more than £45m in investment from the government for two hugely important highway schemes and I was able to thank Robert Jenrick MP, secretary of state for local government, for the investment and discuss with him how we aim to spend it.

One hundred million pounds of investment was awarded to just four schemes across the country and two of those were in Swindon. We were allocated £22.5m for improvements to the White Hart roundabout, which will increase capacity at the junction to accommodate the significant increase in traffic that will be generated by the 8,000-home New Eastern Villages expansion.

Meanwhile, a further £22.9m will be coming from the Department for Transport to help fund the Wichelstowe Southern Access which will help unlock a large portion of the Wichelstowe site by building a tunnel underneath the M4.

This is part of the requirement of the planning permission and will help support the new district centre, 4,500 homes and free up 12.5 hectares of employment land, supporting around 2,000 new jobs.

With so many homes due to be built in the borough over the next 20 years it is important we do everything we can to upgrade and improve our highway network to increase capacity ahead of this planned growth.

This is why we will continue to lobby the government for major funding so we can continue to invest in our town.