Queens Drive Closure: traffic update

Thames Water engineers are carrying out important repairs on a water pipe in Swindon to protect the supply to thousands of properties in the town.

The company is investigating a leak on the 15-inch diameter pipe in Queens Drive and has dug down to the pipe to install equipment which will prevent any customers losing their water supply.

The road will be closed towards the town centre between Drakes Way and the Magic Roundabout while the repairs are completed. Diversions are in place for motorists.

Engineers will be working throughout the weekend and hope to reopen the road by Wednesday.

Tom Hutchinson, Thames Water’s regional operations manager, said: “We’re sorry to anyone affected by the closure of Queens Drive.

“Our engineers have been working hard to fix the problem but due to its complicated nature this is taking longer than expected.

“In the meantime, we hope to open a lane of the road to ease congestion. We don’t expect anyone’s water supply to be affected by the work.

“Feedback from customers tells us they want us to do more to identify and tackle leaks on pipes.

“Unfortunately, we often can’t do that without causing some level of disruption but in the long term it means fewer repairs of this kind.”

Reducing leakage is a top priority for Thames Water. The company has significantly increased investment and is spending more than £1 million a day to reduce leaks,

Thames Water has more than 31,000km of pipes and the majority of leakage is hidden underground. The company is employing a full range of methods, including innovative approaches, to find and fix these leaks before they deteriorate.

These include installing thousands of acoustic sensors on pipes to listen for the sound leaks make, deploying special in-pipe cameras to locate difficult leaks and even trialling a sniffer dog which can detect leaks on a pipe.