RESIDENTS are calling for action after yet another car ploughed into a home in Curtis Street this weekend.

The road’s junction with Crombey Street has become an accident hot spot with cars smashing onto homeowner’s doorsteps on a regular basis, spiking fears for residents’ lives.

For the second time in only three months, a car careered off the road on Curtis Street in the early hours of Saturday morning and drove straight into the front of a house, causing severe structural damage to the exterior wall.

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Wiltshire Police attended the scene, pictured above, at around 5am, and found a man in a black Vauxhall over the legal drink driving limit and also in possession of cannabis.

A police spokesman said: “A man has been charged with driving without insurance, without a driving licence, for driving with excess alcohol, for possession of class B drugs and for aggravated vehicle taking.”

This is not the first time that such an incident has occurred, and residents claim it has happened nearly a dozen times in the past.

John Brennan, who lives in the street, believes the council needs to put barriers up to prevent further damage to people’s properties and is pleased that the council has already started considering how to change the junction.

He said: “I have lived here all my life and since 1995 this has happened more than 11 times. Some people have installed steel bars behind their walls but that’s not going to hold it.

“I’m renovating one house and I live in the house next door, and I don’t know what I can do to protect my wall.

“It’s because they come around that junction too quickly, and take the curve too quickly and either there’s a mechanical fault and it crashes into a wall or their reactions are impaired.

“But one of these days there will be a pedestrian walking along the pavement when it happens and someone will be killed.

“It’s already a busy junction with traffic piling along that road. When that development at Regent Circus is finished there will be cars driving along there non-stop.”

A Swindon council spokes-man said: “Our statistics show there have been four accidents resulting in injuries over the last 12 years along the length of Curtis Street. None were recorded at the T-junction itself and none involved damage to roadside property.

“It is, however, quite likely that there have been accidents similar to this latest one that we have not been informed of by the police, particularly if there were no injuries.

“We are currently looking at ways of improving the traffic management along Crombey Street and we will certainly include this junction in that work to see if there are any measures we can introduce to slow traffic down and change the behaviour of motorists to provide some peace of mind for residents in Curtis Street.”

Wiltshire Police were unable to provide a breakdown of previous incidents before the Adver went to press.

  • 28-year-old Lionel Mushonga, of London Street, has been charged with taking a vehicle without consent and is due to appear before Swindon Magistrates’ Court on March 12.