There is continued anger over what residents claim is the unnecesseary movement of bus stops on Picadilly Roundabout to Dorcan Way. 

Swindon Borough Council has maintained that the bus stops no longer met safety regulations due to changes to the busy Covingham through-route and so they had to be relocated. 

“The improvements to the Piccadilly junction will see an extra lane created around the roundabout to increase capacity and improve traffic flow," it said.

“By placing the bus stops back in their original positions on the roundabout it would block off one of those lanes and an independent road safety audit said this would likely cause accidents as motorists may try to pull out into the other lane to make their way round the stationary bus," a spokesperson from the council said. 

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But residents in the nearby Covingham, Nythe and Coleview areas have questioned the new positions on Dorcan Way, and feel that the move is counter-intuitive and more likely to cause traffic problems. 

"This is a completely stupid idea since the bus stop in the roundabout was out of the way allowing traffic to move past freely," said Pete Reid, 41, a resident of Nythe.

"It’s slap bang in the cycle lane. It beggars belief! Why didn’t someone on the planning dept use their brain and site it in a lay-by to allow free flow of traffic? There’s more than enough grass verge to build on!"

Phil Malyon, 68, from Covingham said that he pointed out to the council that the bus stops were timing points, which meant that buses would wait at the stop until their designated departure time. 

"I was assured they would speak to the bus company about changing the timetable - not sure if they did as the timetable hasn't changed.

"I also contacted the borough councillors for Covingham about a year ago and pointed out the same thing but received a bland, stock reply.

"In both cases I pointed out the perceived danger of the stops there (cars trying to overtake) plus the expectation of delays, especially at peak times."

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Currently motorists in the area are still experiencing delays from the roadworks which are set to be finished in April, so at this stage it is unclear what impact, if any, the Dorcan Way bus stops will have on traffic going forward.