A senior project officer in Swindon Borough Council’s highways department quit after facing what the council’s deputy leader Gary Sumner described as abuse.

Coun Sumner was speaking to a meeting of the council’s Communities and Place Overview & Scrutiny committee as it debated a report on the way Euclid Street communicates to residents about its major roadwork schemes.

Both Labour councillor Jim Grant and Conservative Dan Smith had said to Coun Sumner they thought it would be a useful idea for the council to hold public meetings with residents after major schemes such as Mead Way or the New Eastern Villages works had been completed, and not just before the works had started.

Coun Grant said: “I think it would be useful to speak to residents after the works have finished seeing how they had been affected.”

He referred to Coun Sumner saying that some public events before work started had only been moderately attended because people may not have been sure how they would be affected.

He added: “That’s why it would be useful afterwards – because if they don’t know how they’re going to be affected before the work, they will very much know how they were after it.”

Coun Sumner said: “We always have our own wash-up, we look at what went right and what went wrong, and in the case of Mead Way, if it could go wrong, it did.

“We identify the lessons learned and we take it forward. But with the officer capacity we have, we have to look forward to the next scheme.”

He added: “It is also the case that sometimes emotions can ruin high in these meetings, and officers can face some angry people. We had one senior project officer leave us in order not to have to face the public, in essence, after they faced significant verbal abuse at a meeting about the White Hart roundabout scheme.

“There is a need to protect staff from some members of the public who just want an opportunity to vent their spleen.”

Coun Grant pressed the cabinet member and officers about what he described as a ‘promised’ public meeting about the bedevilled Mead Way scheme. When Coun Sumner said he did not recall any such meeting being promised, Coun Grant said the Labour group leader Jim Robbins was trying to find the minutes of the meeting where he says it had been agreed.