Tourists taken on accidental building site tour (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Tourists taken on accidental building site tour

1:02pm Tuesday 29th May 2012 in News By Ian Craig

THE Cotswolds certainly has a wealth of fascinating attractions and beautiful sights for visitors to enjoy, but few would rank a half-built housing development among them.

However, one coach-load of tourists found themselves being taken on a whistle-stop tour of one of Cirencester’s delightful building sites last week after their dopey driver got hopelessly lost.

The hapless driver managed to take a wrong turn into the Corinium Via development on the outskirts of Cirencester and, replying “we’re on a tour” to builder’s calls of “you can’t go through here”, continued to drive through increasingly narrow roads, before ending up stuck in a cul-de-sac.

After a series of difficult manoeuvres – involving one homeowner having to move their car and an awful lot of hitting the pavement – the embarrassed driver managed to turn around and return his perplexed charges to civilisation.

One resident said they wondered if a sat-nav error was to blame for the misadventure – before realising the estate is still too new to appear on most maps.

“We wondered if the party was on its way to Cirencester's Corinium Museum and the driver was fooled by the temporary yellow signpost on London Road directing vehicles to Corinium Via,” she said. “Perhaps he thought the word 'via' indicated a short cut.

“It must have been extremely embarrassing for the driver and some of the passengers were looking rather perplexed.”