Mobile: 0794 120 1995
Your Independent councillor for Hilperton.
WC considered its precept at the full meeting on the 26th February. It is proposed that the maximum sums allowed will be asked for the precept increase and for the Police & Crime Commissioner. As I write this, the meeting is still ten days away and so I cannot predict what the outcome will be – but I will be surprised if all the increases are not approved.
After the ‘fun and games’ at Gloucester County Council a few days ago, it will be interesting to see whether Extinction Rebellion will seek to disrupt the Wiltshire Council meeting. Climate change is a major issue and WC is doing its bit where it can – such as moving to LED street lighting – but everything helps to reduce our carbon footprint.
Plans for the supply of land for future housing will be reviewed at examination hearings this spring.
The draft Wiltshire Housing Site Allocations Plan proposes to allocate new sites for housing and to maintain a five-year housing land supply in each of Wiltshire’s three Housing Market Areas of Chippenham, Trowbridge and Salisbury up to 2026.
The plan, along with the council’s Schedule of Proposed Changes, will now be examined in public by an inspector from 2 April 2019 at the Civic Centre in Trowbridge.
The inspector has published the agenda for the public hearing sessions, along with a list of matters and questions that will be used to examine the soundness of the plan.
The matters and questions focus on key aspects of the plan including the evidence that has been prepared to support the proposed housing allocations.
The recently released statistics on birth rates in the Trowbridge area show the two schools already planned for the Ashton Park development will help cater for numbers in the coming years. A third school, which was originally proposed for the Elm Grove area of Trowbridge, will no longer be required as the two new schools and extensions to existing schools will meet the need for the future. This will now be reported to the inspector in advance of the hearing sessions.