This is Somerset --
Swindon has been named as the third fastest-growing city in the UK – even though it is not even a city.
Latest figures from the thinktank Centre for Cities listed the Wiltshire town as experiencing the third highest population growth in the past ten years, with almost 30,000 more people living there in 2011 than did in 2001.
Swindon's population jumped from a little over 180,000 to 210,000 in 2011, and has grown by thousands more in the three years since, with the building of the new Wichelstowe area in what was known as "Swindon's Front Garden" along the M4.
Huge new suburbs are planned in the rest of the decade for the countryside to the east of the A419 road, which has been a symbolic barrier on one side of the town.
The town can also rebut its image as the teenage pregnancy capital of the UK – and once of Europe – with the publication of separate figures yesterday.
Swindon became a symbol of the 1990s growth in teen pregnancies, when the birth-rate among under-18 girls rocketed to 218 in a single year – 1998. That figure was twice the rate for the rest of the South West and far higher than the national average.
But that has now almost halved to 118, and in 2012, Swindon's teenage pregnancy rate is now much lower than the national average. Reported by This is 18 hours ago.
Swindon has been named as the third fastest-growing city in the UK – even though it is not even a city.
Latest figures from the thinktank Centre for Cities listed the Wiltshire town as experiencing the third highest population growth in the past ten years, with almost 30,000 more people living there in 2011 than did in 2001.
Swindon's population jumped from a little over 180,000 to 210,000 in 2011, and has grown by thousands more in the three years since, with the building of the new Wichelstowe area in what was known as "Swindon's Front Garden" along the M4.
Huge new suburbs are planned in the rest of the decade for the countryside to the east of the A419 road, which has been a symbolic barrier on one side of the town.
The town can also rebut its image as the teenage pregnancy capital of the UK – and once of Europe – with the publication of separate figures yesterday.
Swindon became a symbol of the 1990s growth in teen pregnancies, when the birth-rate among under-18 girls rocketed to 218 in a single year – 1998. That figure was twice the rate for the rest of the South West and far higher than the national average.
But that has now almost halved to 118, and in 2012, Swindon's teenage pregnancy rate is now much lower than the national average. Reported by This is 18 hours ago.