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Flood a toilet explosion

I noticed, with some amusement, the proposal in todays paper by Swindon Borough Council to close the underpass into Coate Water due to continual flooding.

I am not quite sure how they think this will alleviate the sewage overflow which is causing this issue. I walked through this area this morning and the Queens Drive underpass looked like a toilet explosion with sewage detritus up both grass banks either side of the underpass. Is this a health hazard as well?

If memory serves, this problem started some fifteen years ago when the new hospital was built and according to Thames Water the extra sewage overwhelmed the existing pumping station and the underpasses flooded several times.

I believe the problem was solved by building a new pumping station at the bottom of Marlborough Road and for a few years the flooding stopped.

However we now have hundreds of new homes on Badbury Park. Are they on the same sewage system and if so are we now suffering from a repeat of the earlier issue from GWH - an overloaded system?

I rarely use the Coate Water underpass, preferring to walk round and use the existing pedestrian crossing over Marlborough Road, but I can see this may be a problem for some users of this route, particularly cyclists and mums with prams.

However if SBC and Thames Water cannot prevent the other underpass from flooding, the problem will be how to cross Queens Drive safely.

Perhaps SBC should be considering that as a more pressing issue.

Derek Lingham, Keyneston Road, Nythe

Long delay for HS2

How long have they been talking about HS2 now? It seems like forever.

Its not a new thing, building railways. It was done in Swindon hundreds of years ago. And may I say very successfully. GWR, God Wonderful Railway.

Oh what a pity we don’t have an Isambard Kingdom Brunel around today. If we had it would have already been built.

He and his Irish Navvies built the line from London to Bristol in approx 4 years. And this was without all the hi tech machinery we have today.

It was all Pick and shovels in his day. He built tunnels without all the tunnelling machinery we have today.

God knows they built the Channel Tunnel quicker.

Just get on with it.

There are too many MPs with axes to grind getting involved and in truth they don’t know anything about it.

Build it and be Dammed!

David Collins, Blake Crescent, Swindon