THE residents forced to listen as the bridge between the Wyvern Theatre and the Wyvern Car Park was demolished in the early hours of Sunday morning have every right to feel aggrieved.

While it makes sense for certain demolition and building projects to be worked on outside normal working hours, there is no excuse, short of an emergency, for disrupting people’s sleep.

The ongoing work near the theatre is, of course, a vital part of the rejuvenation of Swindon. Redundant and often rather unsightly old buildings such as the car park are gradually making way for newer and better ones.

Anybody who questions the necessity of such work needs only to look at the Regent Circus development, which is like a breath of fresh air in an area of the town centre which was once dominated by the decrepit and looming presence of the old college building.

Securing and maintaining the goodwill of the local population during major building projects is almost as important as the design and construction.

Public engagement, issuing plenty of information and generally bring proactive throughout are excellent ways of generating positive reactions.

Keeping people up into the wee small hours with acute and quite extreme noise pollution is not.

It is good to know that the council seems to recognise that carrying on the demolition work so late was not the best of ideas. The local authority has promised that no more overnight demolition work is planned.

We’re less impressed with its claim that a reason for the delay was that spectators were standing nearby and had to be dispersed.

Surely this was a possibility which might have been anticipated.

Let us hope there are no more problems, and that the project is completed smoothly.