DISGRUNTLED residents grilled a member of Swindon Borough Council on Wednesday night over the proposal to split their parish.

Redhouse Community Centre hosted a Q&A session in which SBC Councillor Mary Martin, one of the architects of the borough’s Community Governance Review, faced tough opposition to the plans to split Blunsdon St Andrew into two separate parishes.

“If we have a parish that works, why do they want to split it? It doesn’t make any sense,” complained one resident.

Swindon Council has suggested that a new St Andrew’s Ridge Parish Council could be formed that would cover a significant area including Ash Brake, St Andrew’s Ridge, Groundwell West, Redhouse and Abbey Meads, with the A419 acting as the dividing line.

Coun Martin described the purpose of the evening as “a good opportunity for people to ask questions and discuss the plans.”

She said: “The proposal to split Blunsdon St Andrew has generated a lot of interest in the community. There has been a big petition for it and one against it, so I think a discussion like this is really important.”

Plans to split the parish first gained traction after a petition was distributed to residents in 2015.

However, people complained that the petition, which gained more than 890 signatures, was misleading, with one audience member describing it as “a campaign of misinformation.”

“We get petitions about all sorts of things and a lot of them are based on things that may not necessarily be true,” said Coun Martin.

“The borough council cannot guarantee the truth of every petition that comes in and we have to take each one at face value.

“There was a vote by residents of St Andrew to say they were interested in forming their own parish and it was something we had to consider.

“Whatever happens there will be a bunch of people on either side who are unhappy.”

One gentleman claimed that the majority of Blunsdon St Andrew parish councillors are from the St Andrew side and that Blunsdon may struggle to form a parish council on its own.

He said: “All the years I have lived in Blunsdon they have always been pleading for parish councillors to come forward.”