The Fleming Way Bus Boulevard project - a flagship council plan to regenerate Swindon town centre - is unlikely to be finished on time.

And senior councillors are now predicting it could be completed anywhere up to a year late.

In a briefing by the new Labour cabinet at Euclid Street, the cabinet member for the environment and transport Chris Watts was asked whether the work to turn Fleming Way into a public transport hub and open up the town centre to the Kimmerfields business district would be finished as scheduled in late 2024.

Council leader Jim Robbins said: “In the spirit of being open and transparent, I’m going to say no. It’s not likely that we are going to meet that deadline.”

Coun Watts added: “It’s more likely to be the end of 2025.

“It’s very challenging and the team here are working very hard on it.”

One of those challenges has been what Coun Watts called “uncharted utilities”. It’s where workers digging up a road suddenly find water or gas pipes or electricity or communications cables that aren’t on the maps supplied by utility companies.

He said: "Working down there they’ve found gas mains, water mains and live electricity cables which nobody, not even the utility companies, knew were there. There were three 30,000 volt cables, which were live.

“You have to call the utility company, and they say they’ll be there in four weeks. And under law it’s the council that has to pay to get the pipes moved. So these things do add cost and delay to these projects.”

There is one silver lining, according to Coun Watts: “The delay has allowed us to do a bit of redesign and better focus on sustainable travel, and we’ve designed the cycle route better to make it safer and to join it up with the Flyer routes.”

 

Coun Watts added: “As a new cabinet member it was clear from my first briefing with the project team that there were pressures on this project when we took control of the council in May.

“I have called an emergency meeting with the project team and cabinet members to discuss the issues as this will present a significant financial challenge to the already highly stressed budget we have inherited.

“We shall also look to brief the local MP and seek counsel on skewed legislation that protects statutory utility providers, who are by law indemnified from all costs for uncharted utilities such as this.

“It cannot be right that the taxpayer has to foot the bill for these issues by compensating the main contractors who are ultimately delivering these schemes on our behalf.”

The aim of the whole project is to encourage investment into the Kimmerfield business district and to connect it better to the Fleet Street and Bridge Street areas of the town centre which are looking rather run-down, by making it a more attractive place to live work and shop.

The £30m project will see all bus services arriving or crossing Swindon use Fleming Way as a stopping point, and the road will be closed to other motorised traffic.

It has also been lowered allowing pedestrians to cross the road to and from the town centre without using a dark and sometimes unwelcoming underpass.