You can see here how an eastern bypass could pollute our drinking water.

The route of the eastern bypass goes across the flow of the underground water. It is ridiculously close to the borehole from which our drinking water is drawn.

The water flows in the porous chalk sub-strata, downhill from the escarpment.

But the water is not far under the ground.   Oil will easily soak through to it.

What if a fuel tanker vehicle was to accidentally come off the embankment, crash down onto the bare ground below and split open, spilling its oil or petrol?

It would get into the pumping station.   The drinking water might be poisoned.

There could not be an effective or a swift enough action to prevent this.

The water supply for the whole area would next have to be shut off.

To avoid a water pollution accident, the road would have to be within a costly high-sided concrete channel throughout its route through the Wellhead Valley.

But the bypass in WCC's bid is to be in an open cutting at the top of the valley (ie: in the ground...!)  and on a low-sided embankment by the water source.

The fundamental problem is a bypass on the escarpment side of the town.

It may reduce fumes in the centre, but it will worsen the overall health risk.

Here are the ground-water zones being threatened by the eastern bypass.

The Environment Agency had serious concerns about the WCC bypass design, describing the County Council's environmental statement as 'deficient'.   The EA was concerned about the overly close proximity of the eastern bypass route to the Wellhead water source and the potential for its harm during construction.

The EA said that WCC's bypass designers show a worrying lack of understanding of some of the basic facts.   The EA refer to the fact that the Wellhead source feeds into the overall water supply network based at Upton Scudamore.

Here is my further comment on the relative exposure to toxic spill-over.

There is a problem with another part of the scheme, with contaminated land (thought to be containing various poisons and asbestos) which was once the site of an iron works and is now on the proposed route for the Glenmore Link road, by which WCC has intended to interconnect its bypass around the eastern side to the Westbury industrial and trading estates on the western side of the town.

The risk posed by the eastern bypass extends to everyone in the area.

But Wilts County Councillors are persisting with their ruinous scheme ...

... through water-bearing ground and presently unspoiled countryside.