It was great to see this week that Swindon will be used as a test bed for a new breed of environmentally friendly hotels.

If you have visited the town centre recently, you may have seen the purple hoarding that has gone up around the site that used to house the town’s Register Office, opposite The Savoy.

Inside the site itself, work is well underway to build a brand-new 195-bedroom Premier Inn hotel with a ground floor bar and restaurant. The multi-million pound development will redevelop a derelict brownfield site, rejuvenating an important part of the town centre, while at the same time creating 45 new jobs.

READ MORE: Premier Inn to build first all-electric hotel in Swindon

I was especially pleased to learn that this Premier Inn will be Whitbread’s first ‘all-electric’ hotel, designed without a connection to a natural gas supply.

It will be fully heated and powered by energy from the grid, which is generated from renewable sources, and by on-site solar panels. The building will also benefit from air-source heat pumps and new water-heating technology.

Whitbread, which owns Premier Inn, has set itself a target of achieving net zero emissions by 2040 and it has recognised that removing natural gas from its network of hotels will play an important part in helping to reach this goal.

At the Council, we are aiming to reach net zero by 2030 and have set a 2050 target for the whole Borough. This is going to be incredibly challenging but if we are to have a chance of making it happen we need firms like Whitbread to also play their part.

Zurich is another firm investing in green technologies and using the highest building standards to ensure its brand new office block at Unity Place, off Fleming Way, is fit for the future.

Tonight, council colleagues will debate a motion calling for the Council to declare a ‘climate emergency’. Up to now, we have never felt the need to make this declaration because we have always felt that actions speak louder than words.

The fact we haven’t followed other councils in making this statement has sadly become a distraction, so we are now proposing to declare the emergency with a solid track record of action to reduce our emissions and promote green technology behind us.

We have built large solar farms, are close to finalising a huge project to convert our 28,000 streetlights into LEDs and have begun expanding our electric vehicle fleet while also installing on-street electric vehicle charging points across the town.

Another project we are currently developing is the creation of a solar innovation hub at our Waterside depot in Cheney Manor industrial estate.

This will not only generate power to run our household waste centre, but will eventually charge electric vehicles and use battery storage to utilise power from our nearby solar farm to provide electricity for up to 3,000 homes.

The climate emergency is facing all of us and we all have a role to play in tackling it. Whether it is using more sustainable forms of transport or doing something simple like reducing energy consumption at home.

You can find out how you can ‘Be the Change’ by visiting our website for more tips and advice.