Royal Wootton Bassett and Cricklade Neighbourhood Plan is flawed, says councillor

According to a report in the Wilts and Gloucetershire Standard, Councillor John Harmer announced his resignation from the RWBC Neighbourhood Plan steering group because he said he believed that continuing with the plan would be "the wrong decision" for the town.

Wiltshire Council identified the community area last year, which included Royal Wootton Bassett, Lyneham, Purton and Cricklade, The Council's aim was to create a "united front" to ensure the development aims of the local community were listened to. 

But Councillor Harmer said that the development aims and concerns of each community were difficult to reconcile, which means that the process takes too long.

"It’s not for want of trying," said Harmer, according to local reports. "The absolute desire of all people around the table is to progress the neighbourhood plan but the struggle is to do that effectively. I believe we are better off as individual areas. Lyneham were keen to point out the unique problems they have with the airbase and that’s quite different to representatives of Marston Meysey who said their main issue was gravel extraction."

The pilot 'front runner' scheme to create one community plan for development across 12 diverse towns and parishes was a "near impossible task", said Harmer.

However, the Council has warned that if RWBC split up into more localised area plans, not only would they have less chance of getting the development they want, but the local communities would struggle to get funding from Wiltshire County Council.

"My view is that united we stand or divided we fall," said Peter Colmer, of Wiltshire Council, according to local reports. "What we need is to stop the Tadpole and the Ridgeway Farm developments encroaching nearer to us. I firmly believe that at a planning appeal it will carry more weight than Cricklade saying one thing and Purton saying another."

Councillors agreed to defer a decision on whether to pull out of the scheme until the next full town council meeting on September 10, following feedback from Wiltshire Council.

In the meantime Cricklade town councillor Mark Clarke was voted in as the new neighbourhood plan steering group representative.