Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

Wiltshire Council news from Ernie Clark, your Independent councillor.

The budget-setting meeting of Wiltshire Council passed without any surprises, apart from the fact that it didn’t go on until 11.00pm as it did last year!<./p>There was no increase in the precept but the Conservative administration wouldn’t provide free swimming to the under 16s or over 60s. Also, our sports centres will continue to be closed on Bank Holidays. Bizarre, but the Conservatives refused to find the few thousand pounds this would cost.

Several people have contacted me about the cinema plans for Trowbridge and the delay in getting a decision on the Bowyer site scheme compared to the Tesco site. The reason for this is simple. The developers of the Tesco site held ‘pre-application’ discussions with Wiltshire Council (WC) planning officers so that, when their formal application was submitted, the major snags had already been ironed-out of the scheme. On the other hand, there was no contact between WC and the Bowyer site applicants until the application was handed in to the council. Accordingly there are now a number of issues to be sorted out that would, normally, have been dealt with during the ‘pre-app’ discussions.

‘Pre-app’ meetings are not unusual, and are almost the norm for major developments. As part of the refinements to the application it would seem that the petrol station part of the development has been removed and other variations might well have to be made. It is now expected that the WC planning committee will consider the amended plans sometime in April/May.

The pre-submission copy of the Wiltshire Core Strategy is currently out for public consultation. Unlike the previous ‘draft’ document, Hilperton is now recognised as a ’large village’ and, as a result of this, the Village Policy Limit will be retained. If you were one of the residents that contacted WC to support my campaign for them to see common sense and give Hilperton its village status back, you might care to get in touch with WC again to support their change of mind.

The village Jubilee celebration is now confirmed for Saturday 2nd June, starting at 1.00pm.