NEW pavements, a separated cycle lane and maps will make the shortest route into Swindon town centre a much more enticing prospect, according to the borough council.

The authority is soon to spend £851,000 on a 15-week project to give Wellington Street, the quickest route from the railway station to the centre a facelift.

At the moment the street, which is the first sight of Swindon for people getting off the train, is fairly anonymous. There are a couple of pubs and the route ahead looks obstructed by an office block - it does nothing to say to a visitor “walk this way”.

Project manager for the scheme Laura Jones said: “At the moment the street’s a little scruffy - there’s all different colours of surface and patches.

“The new scheme will have new paving for the footpath and a segregated cycle path. A lot of people ride to the station and leave their bike there and then head off. We want to make it safer and better for the people who cycle and encourage them.

“There’ll also be yellow lines so cars don’t park and it’s easier to drive down. We’re trying to make it better for everyone.

“Maps at the junction with Station Road will show visitors where to head for the town centre, and there’ll be one at the junction with Milford Street.”

As visitors to a one-day exhibition of the plans and timescales at the Great Western Hotel looked at display boards, Jane added: “We’ve had a steady stream of people, and the feedback has been fairly good.”

One visitor looking at diagrams and quizzing officials was Martin Cusack.

He said: “I think this is being done for commercial reasons - it’s quite sensible really. There’s a new hotel going up nearby and Signal Point is going to be renovated, so they want to improve this street.

“I don’t know that it will make the town centre more inviting to visitors though.”

Swindon Bus Company operations manager Paul Coyne was at the display with a group of colleagues. He was more concerned at how the actual work would affect buses.

He said: “I don’t think the improvements make much difference to us, it’s mainly for pedestrians and cyclists - but I’m happy that the work won’t cause us too much bother. We’ll be able to work around it well enough.”

Another resident checking out the scheme, Alexandra Sarah, said: “I hope it works. It isn’t an inviting view from the station, but the offices at the end there – there’s not much you can do about those.”

Work is scheduled to begin on January 7 and will last for 15 weeks until early May.

If work needs the road to be closed, it will take place at night between midnight and 5am.