DEVELOPER Rolton Kilbride needs to get the message that Swindon does not want its proposed garbage farm.

The public has told it they do not want its garbage farm, the public’s elected representatives have told it they do not want its garbage farm and the specialist local officials who are paid to assess such matters have carefully explained why nobody wants its garbage farm.

In spite of this, Rolton Kilbride is pressing ahead with its bid to build the thing on land off Thornhill Road in South Marston.

The developer is ignoring the will of the people and ignoring the decision by Swindon Borough Council to turn down the planning application.

It is now making good on its infamous, arrogant and outrageous threat, voiced by its barrister at a public meeting where loathing of the bid was overwhelming, to drag our cash-strapped local authority through an appeal.

As if this were not sufficiently atrocious, we now learn that the company is talking to a London-based waste handling company about bringing trainloads of refuse from the capital.

It must be stressed that the developer, in making the proposal, pressing the appeal and considering making the town a dumping site for London, is acting entirely within the law.

That is why the law must be changed, and changed very rapidly.

It is preposterous that local authorities, by doing their duty in reflecting the strongly-held views of the people they represent, risk having to pay the potentially ruinous costs associated with defending an appeal.

Justice and sheer common sense demand that if a developer makes a proposal and is told in the clearest terms that its proposal is unacceptable, the developer should be made to foot the entire bill for any appeal they care to bring.

Any lawmaker who claims the current system is fair speaks nonsense.