FIVE bus shelters which have been described as “rubbish” and “a waste of money” are due to be revamped, as a Salisbury resident continues his battle to get them replaced.

David Brown has once again called for the five bus shelters on Coronation Road, Devizes Road, Balmoral Road, Bishopdown Road and Herbert Road to be addressed by Wiltshire Council, and as a result up to £2,000 has been allocated to modify the models.

An eight-inch gap along the top of each bus shelter is causing residents to get wet when it rains, and the Community Area Transport Group (CATG) has granted the sum to rectify this problem, heard at the Salisbury Area Board Monday night.

Despite the proposal however, during the meeting Mr Brown called out: “I know you’ve tried to do all you can with what we’ve got, but would it be better to not spend any more money and just wait until they can be replaced with proper shelters?”

In response Wiltshire councillor and chairman of the CATG, Sven Hocking, said: “Yes it would be, but this maximum amount of money will be purely used to close the gap along the vertical.

"It would be nice to just wait until we can order repairs but I think we need to do a little bit now in recognition of some of the residents.”

And Cllr Hocking confirmed that “at a later stage” the group will be looking to put a more “significant structure in place”.

Support for the £2,000 modification money was voiced by several councillors, including Cllr Matthew Dean who said: “It won’t solve the issues but it will help mitigate them. This will at least solve the problem of rain coming in.”

Cllr John Walsh added: “This has been a long-running saga. I believe that councillors were mindful about the amount of money these things cost, and probably made the right decision at the time. Later on we discovered unfortunately that it wasn’t quite what we expected.

"I feel to spend £2,000 to bring them up to standard doesn’t sound unreasonable.”

Salisbury Reds has been contacted by the CATG in a bid to secure joint funding for new shelters.

Speaking to the Journal, Mr Brown said: “It is done now but [around] £20,000 has been wasted. It is not good enough, these shelters are rubbish, and I am now writing to Wiltshire Council in Trowbridge.”