It was Proctor who opened the scoring for Swindon on 25 minutes when he scored from 8 yards out following a pass from Sam Parkin.
Swindon's only other half chance to score in the first half came from a free kick which Grant Smith took, the the shot was saved and put on for a corner.
In the second half Grant Smith came close to scoring again also from a free kick from 35 yards out which the 'keeper got a hand to, but couldn't hold as it had to much power on it, but the ball was cleared away before Swindon could get a second goal.
Rhys Evans was also forced to make a number of good saves to keep Port Vale from scoring after 48 minutes.
David Duke also came close to scoring, but the final score stayed at 1-0 which was enough to keep the smallest home crowd of the season (4,724) happy on the cold night.
Overall an important win, which Swindon deserved. For the first half an hour of the game Swindon were all over Port Vale, but Port Vale came back into the game in the second half, and could have scored if it wasn't for some good saves by Rhys Evans.
Swindon now. travel to South Yorkshire on Saturday to play Doncaster Rovers for the first time since 1986.