Bid to make Swindon's Magic Roundabout a tourist attraction with its own characters fails

A proposal to turn Swindon's Magic Roundabout into a tourist attraction has failed.

The roundabout - made of five mini-roundabouts - is one of the Wiltshire town's most famous landmarks.

"When you say you're from Swindon people say, with a smile 'Ah the Magic Roundabout'," said Swindon Borough Councillor Kevin Parry.

He and fellow Conservative councillor Barbara Parry had put forward a motion to make the roundabout into a tourist attraction.

The proposal involved asking schoolchildren to create characters who would be placed in the central island of the Magic Roundabout.

• Archive footage shows Swindon's Magic Roundabout in 1974

"It's a genius piece of traffic engineering, but it's not very exciting," Cllr Kevin Parry added.

He said the roundabout could be transformed into something like Mushroom Street in Alicante, Spain, which features large sculptures of fungi in the middle of the street.

Cllr Kevin Parry said: "Let the magic begin and let's put the magic back into the Magic Roundabout."

However, Labour council leader Cllr Jim Robbins rejected the proposal.

"This isn't something we can support," he said. "We understand the motives behind the motion and it's a thing to do, but we don't have the officer time or money to put into this."

Labour Cllr Marina Strinkovsky suggested a local creative and arts group could take the idea forward.

The motion for a Magic Roundabout attraction was defeated by Labour votes over the Conservatives.

Credit: Aled Thomas, Local Democracy Reporting Service