RESIDENTS in Wanborough fear that a new road to ease traffic from the Eastern Villages development will segregate them from the rest of the village.

Initial plans for the south connector road, which will provide access for construction traffic and for residents to the Eastern Villages development, will form a junction with Wanborough Road and join the Commonhead Roundabout.

But the plans outlined in a feasibility report prepared for Swindon Council, will see residents in the hamlet like, Jo Bains, who owns the B&B at Great Morleaze Farm as well as The Dance Studio in Lower Wanborough, cut off from the rest of Wanborough.

She said: “It means that everybody who lives at Morleaze will be set between two dual carriageways.

“The traffic is bad enough as it is. In the morning between 7am and 9.30am the traffic is heaving along the A419 and it’s almost impossible to get out. And then between 5.30pm in the evening to 7pm the same thing happens again.

“The A419 flyover was supposed to ease the traffic flow and prevent this from happening but it is just as bad as it ever was.

“I know we need this new road but it’s going to make us an island.

“They need to take it further up Pack Hill and somehow connect it to junction 15 of the M4, not the Commonhead Roundabout.

“It just seems like Swindon Council are being underhand. In the past they’ve said that they couldn’t grant planning permission because it’s in an area of outstanding beauty. Now they are just putting a road through it.”

Although the surrounding countryside which makes up the Ridgeway is an Area of Outstand-ing Natural Beauty, the Eastern Villages development does not encroach on that area since original development plans established the need for any development to be contained without the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The feasibility report was drawn up in response to a growing need to build a road into the Eastern Villages which will prevent traffic building up in Wanborough Road and down Merlin Way, preventing congestion in the village and in Covingham.

The proposals are not expected to go under consultation for another two years, and it has yet to be decided what form the road will take, and when it will be built.