A town centre shop owner has expanded with a microbrewery and bar after leaving the Brunel Centre for a bigger building.

The Drink Valley was previously a shop for craft beer afficianados to get bottled and canned ales. But the move to Fleet Square, near the Sir Daniel Arms, in December has allowed owner Dhiraj Pujari to think bigger.

Now it is a brewpub that offers a range of homemade ales alongside, local, national and international beers, wine and spirits - and a range of English and Indian food.

Since opening just before Christmas, Dhiraj has seen a flurry of customers enter his new bar.

He said: “We were looking for an expansion into our next stage. We couldn’t go ahead at The Brunel so we started looking at other units in the town centre.

“Now we have our own brewery, a new thing for this side of town. We have a bar and our craft beer shop as well.

“I’ve lived in Swindon since 2011 and I love it, there’s nice people around and everyone’s helping each other and that’s the best thing for me.”

He added: “It’s been straightforward reopening. The council has helped us with our planning and licensing applications, everything went really well. We never got stuck with anything, it was really helpful.

“Quite a few new places are opening up around the town and a few more will be opening soon which will really help the area.

“It’s going to take time. Big premises were taken up by big companies but they’re leaving. Now it’s up to smaller businesses to open which will then give more confidence to the bigger businesses to show something is happening.”

Swindon Borough Council acknowledged the help it offered to Dhiraj with move to a new venue and has said that while it can’t influence rent or business rates, there are other things it can do to help businesses set up in the town centre.

“What we can do is work with owners and landlords to help them bring their buildings back into use," it said in a statement.

“We worked with Dhiraj Pujari to relocate his business from The Brunel to his new location which offered him more space and has allowed him to open up his own microbrewery and bar alongside his shop.”

The town centre has been criticised as an unattractive shopping destination for shoppers and for businesses, but efforts are being made to improve the area.

To find out more about the challenges and what is being done to support the area, visit swindon.gov.uk/towncentreregeneration