LANE closures will be in place at a busy Swindon junction for the next seven weeks.

The roadworks are the next phase of a £30m scheme to improve the traffic flow at the White Hart Roundabout.

Swindon Borough Council is upgrading the roads network as part of the New Eastern Villages development. This will see around 8,000 new homes built to the east of the A419 along with new schools, employment spaces and community and leisure facilities.

The approach to White Hart Roundabout will be reduced to a single lane between 7.30am and 6pm on weekdays from Monday (June 22) for seven weeks to allow contractor Osborne to get on site and complete the next stage of the work.

This will include the installation of ducting and drainage systems.

Work will also take place on the A419 slip road southbound at night towards the end of the seven-week period.

The council's cabinet member for strategic infratructure, transport and planning Gary Sumner said: “Work to carry out these vital upgrades have been quietly going on despite the coronavirus pandemic, but motorists will begin to see more activity on the road over the next couple of months.

“A key feature of these improvements is that we are doing them now before the 8,000 homes are built so we create additional capacity to cope with the extra traffic on our roads.

“We also had the great news last week of a £400m investment at nearby Symmetry Park, which will create 2,000 jobs, further emphasising the need to enhance our road network.”

Key cycling and pedestrian routes will also be incorporated into the NEV development as well as green spaces including a nature reserve, playing fields and allotments.

Around £72.5m is being invested to make sure the nearby roads and junctions can cope with the extra traffic NEV is expected to generate.

White Hart is one of the junctions being upgraded, along with Gablecross junction, Piccadilly roundabout and a section of Oxford Road near the Nythe Road junction.

A new road, known as the Southern Connector Road, will also form a link between the NEV and Commonhead roundabout, near the Great Western Hospital.

The upgrades to Greenbridge roundabout, which have already been undertaken, are also part of the investment in the road network in the east of the town in preparation for the housing developments.