Wiltshire Council is gearing up to produce proposals for locating five and a half thousand new houses around Chippenham.  It’s a  poorly kept secret that some council planning officers see the east of Chippenham, across the River Avon from Riverside Drive and Monkton Park, as the preferred option.  The Council owns a large chunk of that land and would be a major beneficiary of a decision to build there.  Chris will be asking the Council’s Conservative leadership how an impartial decision can be taken about the location when the Council will benefit financially from development of some locations but not from others.  

Chris would anyway like to see the decisions postponed till after the upcoming General Election, as a change of government would probably see the end of the requirement for 5500 new houses around the town.  “We should be left to decide on how best to meet our housing needs without these ill-considered targets being imposed by central government”, Chris argues.