There's good news and bad news for Wanborough residents as the main route into the village will be open for Christmas - but not for long. 

Wanborough Road which connects the village to Covingham has been closed for a number of months as part of preparation for the building of 370 homes as part of the New Eastern Villages development. 

The closure was only supposed to last three months but significant archaeological finds uncovered as the road's surface was been dug up had delayed things a further two months from the initial September 9 finish date.  

Several businesses, such as Lotmead PYO and many of Wanborough's pubs, rely on trade coming from Swindon and have been heavily impacted by the road closure, as well as others in the village, like the year-long closure of The Marsh.

To offset this, Ridgeway ward councillor Gary Sumner, Swindon Borough Council's Streetworks team and contractor Conlon have agreed to reopen the road sometime in November to give pubs their Christmas trade and also allow residents access to the shops at Bridgemead without the diversion until well after New Year's Day.

During this time works will continue on pavement installations under signals.

To facilitate this Conlon will be given a two-week 'hard closure' of Wanborough Road from the Covingham end on September 19 which will mean that SCR deliveries/construction traffic cannot use that end of the road for two weeks (resident access is maintained by law at all times).

This will allow Conlon to accelerate some of the drainage work they have to do without constantly stopping.

But, the road will then close again in mid-January - for an expected worst case of five months. 

Counc Sumner explained: "I appreciate this is longer than anticipated, but it is the developers bringing forward the Redlands development who have the Traffic Regulation Order and the legal right to do these works as an obligation of their planning consent.

"The work has taken considerably longer than anticipated due to the requirement for archaeologists to be present for each ‘dig’ in the road and Conlon has only been able to complete 6m of dig per day compared with their usual 30m. In 12 weeks they have only done some 300m of expected works and will still have 600m to complete."

Wanborough pubs, The Plough Inn, The Harrow, The New Calley Arms, The Brewer's Arms, The Cross Keys all remain open via the diversion route. 

Lotmead PYO remains open from the Covingham end.