Since the beginning of the century and the public enquiry into the Front Garden development, Wroughton Parish Council has fought consistently against coalescence with Swindon, major developments south of the M4 and the despoiling of green field sites when previously undeveloped sites are available.

These consistent policies have borne fruit by informing the Swindon Local Plan so that the ‘quota’ of new dwellings required for Wroughton until 2026 is 150, all of which can be accommodated on brown field sites.

The Local Plan now moves forward to adoption and this means the parish council can proceed with the adoption of a Neighbourhood Plan for Wroughton, copies of which have been delivered to every household in the village.

While I enthusiastically endorse the policies behind our draft plan, which I have argued for inside and outside the parish council since the year 2000, I urge residents to regard this as a genuine consultation and to use the consultation form to respond to the specific proposals in the document.

We will need the support of Wroughton residents in order to proceed through a public examination to a referendum vote, but we also need to know if anything has been left out or if there are contradictions in the document.

I recommend the document to those developers wishing to build on virgin green field sites, when 3,500 houses with full planning permission and infrastructure need to be built at Mid and West Wichel within the parish of Wroughton, and to those parish councils and communities in Swindon who want to resist such unnecessary and unsustainable development.

Councillor John Newman Priors Hill Wroughton Swindon