THE newest pub in Swindon is in the running to be hailed as the town's best boozer.

The Adver has whittled down hundreds of suggestions from our loyal readers who put forward their favourite local pub for our new competition, so it's now up to you to decide the winner.

Each physical edition of the Swindon Advertiser through to this Saturday's paper will have tokens which can be collected and sent into us.

The pub with the most tokens received by August 21 will emerge triumphant and be honoured with the title of Swindon's Best Pub next month once all the tokens have been tallied.

In the meantime, we're chatting to the landlords of each entry into our top 10 shortlist to give them a chance to have their say and rally their fans to garner as many votes as possible.

The Runner and The Swiss Chalet, and The Victoria and The Clifton have put their best cases forward. Now it's the turn of The Strawberry Thief.

Arkells' first new addition to the area in two decades opened in the Tadpole Garden Village just two months ago but it has made such a good first impression that some readers have already hailed it as one of the town's best.

Newlyweds Tom and Mairead Titcombe manage the pub together with a team of staff.

He said: "We are chuffed to bits and overwhelmed to be in the Top 10, it means the world.

"I thought it would take a long time to build up that reputation but the positive reaction we've had since opening has been fantastic.

"It's something different and a good new option for people in Swindon. I'm a huge fan of traditional pubs - that's my background - but this is modern and slick and has different food to the typical pub menu."

The pub had an early soft opening in time for the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday and then welcomed Swindon dignitaries to have a look around inside for its official opening a few weeks later.

Tom added: "Our opening day was crazy busy, people were queueing to get in, and the staff have worked so hard to get to where we are now.

"We're a young couple with a young team who have the right attitude and really care, paving the way for a new generation."