The day roads turned to rivers (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

The day roads turned to rivers

Drivers negotiate flooded roads in Swindon Ref: 71656-30AUGUST may not have brought glorious sunshine to Swindon yet but things could be a lot worse.

This time last year the town was flooded as storms hit Swindon twice in three days.

Torrential rain hit the town's streets on August 3 and then again two days later last year, causing havoc on the roads, flooding homes and offices and cutting off electricity supplies.

But even if the weather this August has so far been slightly disappointing at least there is no sign of the downpours of last year.

Dave Partington, spokesman for the Met Office, said the outlook for the next couple of weeks was fairly positive.

"This coming week is quite promising with a lot of dry settled weather and fairly warm," he said.

"It will be around 22-5C for a good part of the week.

"The following week may be more unsettled with some rain and showers, with temp-eratures around 21C.

"But the second half of the week may well become dry again and reasonably warm.

"So it is quite good a lot of the time."

In the storms on August 5 last year lightning struck the south more than 1,500 times in half an hour, pushing the emergency services to their limits.

In Swindon the entrance to Brunel West car park was under four inches of water and had to be closed along with Brunel North car park.

The Link Centre in West Swindon was also shut because of flooding and the incessant rain caused problems at the conference centre at Lydiard Park.

Wootton Bassett Road, Kingshill Road, Cheney Manor Road, Drove Road, Upham Road and Dorcan Way were just a few of the streets that became impassable.

In the town the House of Fraser department store in Canal Walk and WH Smith in Regent Street were two shops which flooded and Blue Arrow Recruitment was also hit.

This year water shortages are more of a problem, with Thames Water, which supplies Swindon, saying it still cannot rule out a hosepipe ban later in the summer.

Isabel Field