Blunsdon Parish Council is still trying to secure funding for pathways connecting the village to its schools and GP surgery, a project discussed at length during a finance meeting at Blunsdon Village Hall on September 21, which began at 7.30pm and, it is understood, did not end with a path.
Councillors heard that Swindon Borough Council could potentially release Section 106 money, tied to a proposed development of 80 homes, for routes to school bus stops. However, an email sent to a borough council manager back in February has yet to produce any visible movement. Traffic data, requested in May and June, finally arrived by July, after which it emerged that further discussions with highways officers were needed about a consultation report, meaning the path remains, for now, entirely theoretical.
The council has, in the meantime, considered cheaper alternatives to formal road safety measures, concluding that speed chevrons would require road layout changes it cannot afford, and floating the idea of white picket fencing to mark the village entrance instead. It is not yet clear whether the fencing is intended to slow traffic or simply to look nice while everyone continues crossing the road at their own risk.
Brenda Pask, 72, of Old Town, who has lived there since before it was old, said in her day a path was something you made yourself, by walking somewhere often enough that the grass gave up. 'Ron used to say a council meeting about a pavement was like a committee meeting about breathing. Either you're doing it or you're not. There's no funding stream for putting one foot in front of the other.'
Gary Tench, Area Manager at Tench Paper Solutions in Westlea, said the saga had given him a new way of describing the gap between Tench Paper Solutions' loading bay and the staff entrance, a distance of roughly eleven metres that has required three separate risk assessments and a laminated sign reading 'Mind How You Go' since 2022. 'We call it the Last Mile,' he said. 'Julie calls it a trip hazard. I prefer to think of it as a journey.'
The Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for north Swindon is expected to eventually address links between Blunsdon, Tadpole Garden Village and Abbey Farm, though no date has been given, and the picket fence remains, like the path itself, a work in progress.