A BOROUGH councillor has branded two of Swindon’s new cycle lanes ‘s**t’.

Labour councillor for Mannington and Western Jim Robbins said in a tweet how shocked he was that it took Swindon Borough Council and councillor David Renard five months to make the changes.

In previous comments made to the Adver he has said work should have started when the country went into lockdown.

He said: “I’ve just seen Swindon Council’s cycle lanes on Station Road and Commercial Road. Councillor David Renard are you serious? How has this taken five months? I’m shocked at how s**t it is.”

Swindon Advertiser:

In Station Road the council was looking to change one lane to a temporary two-way cycle lane, leaving pavement space for pedestrians in between.

One lane of traffic will be closed to cars in Commercial Road making a one-way cycle lane running with the traffic flow.

These changes were completed on Thursday.

Speaking to the Adver David Renard responded to the backlash, he said: “What we saw across the country was authorities putting things in place very quickly and then having to take them out again. So we have spent some time consulting on a number of schemes, consulting with local businesses and local residents.

“We have taken longer than some other authorities but as we saw with the reopening of the recycling centre if you take a little bit longer you quite often see a better outcome.

“The emergency active travel fund didn’t become available until we started to come out of lockdown, so to suggest we should have done this in March is disingenuous. There were a number of schemes being considered but we looked at these two areas and thought these were the most beneficial. We are encouraging people to cycle and be more active which is what the money is for and that’s what we’re spending it on.”