We now have details of the new Sunday bus service. This is changing from Stagecoach West to Salisbury Reds but will be operated by Thamesdown. It will be a service 80, running two hourly, not an X5. It will run down the back road between Chiseldon and Ogbourne St George, via Draycot Foliat. The timetable is very similar to the current one, although one of the lunchtime services is later at 12.45pm from Swindon.

There is good news on the Salisbury Reds X5 service. As from Monday 2 September this bus will start going back into the GWH and picking up at stop D, as it used to do, but only on the way out of Swindon. A new timetable for the X5 is due to come out in September.

There are a number of changes, since my last report, on Service 80 with a lot of time gaps of over three hours in the service. The 09.25 am Saturday service from Swindon will be withdrawn from 4th August. The extra service into Swindon in the morning has changed by 10 minutes earlier, being 08.57 from the Memorial Hall and 08.59 from the Landmark stop.

An extra service on the 81, that comes via Chiseldon, 07.20 from Swindon Bus Station, 07.50 from the Landmark stop. This goes through to Thorney Park and Wroughton. This is the extra service for workers at the care homes in Badbury and Draycott Road. I would suggest residents get a copy of this new timetable which is currently available on Stagecoach West’s website. There are quite a number of timing differences.

We have now heard that Salisbury Reds are going to run a school bus from Swindon and Chiseldon to St John’s School in Marlborough. This will replace the withdrawn 80 service. It will run as Service 680. This will be a school service only until it gets to Marlborough when it will become an X5 service to Salisbury.

May’s Lane will be closed from Monday 19th August for three days from 09.30 to 15.30. This will allow BT to put cabling into the ducts in the road and hopefully will not dig up the new road surface.

Thames Water will be operating from Monday 15th July to Wednesday 6th November. This will be from Castle View Road, around the junction at the Esso Garage A346 to the Ridgeway Cottages. This will be controlled by multiway traffic lights.

There is a major scheme for Eastern Villages to start as soon as possible. This £72 million will need to be finished and money spent by March 2021. This will involve work at Commonhead, an orbital road across the estate that will join with the A420 at Acorn Bridge and road changes at the White Hart Roundabout off the A419.

SBC have put in a bid for a pot of Government money to change Fleming Way and the existing Bus Station. Hopefully this will take place over the next year.

David Hill