north of Cricklade with the newly built Spine Road (B4696) which runs west through the Cotswold Water Park. The £4m Stratton St. Margaret (Swindon) Bypass opened in October 1977, the £2.4m Blunsdon-Cricklade Improvement opened in June 1988 and the Latton Bypass opened on 24 December 1997. A bottleneck in Swindon at Blunsdon traffic lights and the nearby Turnpike roundabout, where local traffic mixes with through traffic for the M4 and the Cotswolds, was addressed by construction of a dual-carriageway bypass in 2006–2009. A flyover at Commonhead, the main junction for southeast Swindon and another source of congestion, was opened to traffic in 2007. Parts of the newly dualled sections of road are surfaced in concrete, which is relatively unusual in the UK. The high tyre noise generated by this surface is unpopular with nearby residents. Management contract The A419 is managed and maintained by Road Management Services (Gloucester) Ltd which receives income in the form of shadow tolls based on the volume of traffic. The 30-year contract expires in 2026. In 2018, the company made a profit before tax of £4.5 million on turnover of £17.8 million. See also The Golden Valley Line – a railway line serving a similar route List of crossings of the River Thames References External links Highways Agency pages: A419/A417 Route Management Strategy Blunsdon Bypass Scheme Commonhead Junction Scheme SABRE page on the A417 Roads in England Transport in Gloucestershire Transport in Wiltshire