RESIDENTS who have been pleased with Thames Water’s £10m flood-alleviation works say Swindon Council workers are letting the side down.

Neighbours in Haydon Wick High Street yesterday claimed that although the Swindon Commercial Services had been out to temporarily cover some potholes on Wednesday, they had to live in Third World conditions for months.

Residents have said although Thames Water and its contractor, Murphy, both private firms, managed what they called an “excellent project” Swindon Council’s company SCS has failed to impress.

Residents said the council has taken far too long to reply to their requests for help with the road.

They claimed it had potholes so deep it was tripping people, damaging cars and throwing people from their bicycles.

And now that the council has decided to act they say far too much time has been scheduled for the project.

“The road has been this bad for 14 months, I mean we all dealt with it while the works were going on, but now as it has got worse it is in dire disgrace,” said Alan Martin, who lives beside one of the street’s worst areas.

“On Wednesday they sent an emergency response team to fill in the potholes temporarily but that took a lot of complaints top get done.

“They should have been here donkey’s years ago.”

Another resident, Alan Osborne, said he was almost hit by a delivery van last week because of the poor state of the roads.

He said: “Residents have been sent letters saying they will start doing the pavements on May 17, that is to take five weeks, so we should see that done in eight weeks.

“At that point they will be starting on the roads.”

Thames Water said it announced the completion of its work on March 17 – meaning work will begin on the road three months after the sewers were finished.

Richard Hailstone, the chairman of Haydon Wick Parish Council, echoed Mr Osborne’s statements, saying he, too, was surprised at the length of time SCS expected the works to take, considering Thames Water had managed to resurface an entire road in one day.

A spokesman for the council said: “Thames Water re-instated the road after carrying out work as part of a £10m flood alleviation scheme.

“It’s fair to say the re-instatement work wasn’t to the standard we would ideally have wanted to see.

“But, in their defence, the situation has not been helped by freezing overnight temperatures which have carried on well into the spring and which have caused damage to the surface.

“We will be resurfacing the pavements and repairing the kerbs, which will take between four to five weeks.

“Repairs to the road which, for technical reasons, have to be done after the kerbstone work, will go ahead immediately after the pavements are finished.”