RESIDENTS have stepped forward in support of controversial plans to close a subway underneath Queen’s Drive, saying they have endured persistent anti-social behaviour because of it.

Carol Hindley and Maria Baxter, of Kirby Close, say they ‘support wholeheartedly’ Swindon Council’s plans to close the subway and replace it with a pedestrian crossing.

The council says the subway is old, costly, unsafe and attracts vandalism. But other neighbours say the council’s plans are a waste of money and the subway is a valuable and well-used means of crossing the busy road to get to Lawn woods.

Last week twin sisters Susan and Joan Rogers, 68, who both use electric scooters, said they use the subway every day and if it were to close their lives as they knew it would end.

Susan Rogers has a phobia about crossing road as she is scared of traffic and was housebound for seven years.

Another resident, Jonathan Myler, 42, of Kirby Close, said the underpass was very much used and did not see why the council wanted to replace it. He said: “To me this sounds very stupid. The subway is the main walkway to the Lawn woods and a much safer way of crossing the road and this has no disturbance to the flow of traffic to the drivers using Queens Drive.”

But Ms Hindley and Ms Baxter insist the subway has led to countless instances of anti-social behaviour.

They said: “Whilst we sympathise with the sisters’ phobia about busy roads, as residents of Kirby Close, we support wholeheartedly the council’s decision to replace the subway with a Toucan crossing due to the anti-social behaviour and vandalism we have suffered from gangs of youths hanging around the subway at night and at weekends.

“If the sisters were residents of the close they would understand.

“I am sure they would not appreciate their porch window being smashed in twice within six months, their garden wall being kicked in, their car windscreen being smashed, the horrendous noise of mopeds zooming consistently through the subway at four o’clock in the morning, youths drinking alcohol and smashing the bottles all over the pathway and fires being set alight within the subway.”

The council says that as the subway is regularly vandalised it is more cost-effective in the long run to replace it with a pedestrian crossing.

As it is a public right of way, the council has to get permission from the magistrates’ court to close it, and the hearing is on June 8.

If permitted, work should begin in September and diversions will be put in place.