Contractors working on the Piccadilly roundabout roadworks will be stood down until an asbestos pipe is removed.

Thames Water is needed to remove the pipe on Covingham Drive, but it is not currently known when the firm will be able to do it. 

As a result, following the overnight resurfacing work that finished on April 5, no further work will be carried out, delaying the project. 

Borough council cabinet member for infrastructure and planning, Gary Sumner confirmed the shut down and said all the work that could be done had been done other than some signals and landscaping to complete. 

Signs at the Covingham roundabout still show a winter 2021 completion date, already delayed from the project's initial summer 2021 deadline. Earlier this year a new April deadline was brought in. 

Swindon Advertiser:

In February Coun Sumner said: "We anticipate the Piccadilly roundabout scheme to be finished over the next few months as we are dependent on utility companies carrying out their work on site." 

And ward councillor Kevin Parry later confirmed April was the planned finish time: "Piccadilly roundabout has currently slipped from March 2022 to late April 2022. This is due to Thames Water and the removal of the asbestos pipe on Covingham Drive.

This latest development almost certainly means that the latest April deadline will not be met. 

But motorists frustrated at the disruption caused by the long-running works should experience no further delays because the roundabout has been fully resurfaced and currently all lanes are open. 

The large presence of fencing, cones, contractor compounds, unfinished traffic islands and landscaping will remain for the moment. 

Swindon Advertiser:

The work falls under an umbrella of projects in the east of Swindon in preparation for 8,000 new homes arriving as part of the New Eastern Villages. 

But along with works to Gablecross roundabout, The White Hart roundabout and the Nythe Road/Oxford Road junction, it has seen deadlines slip.