The message from the Bank of England and Central Government is quite clear that we need more houses, so it is not surprising that Chippenham is a key target as one of the principal settlements in Wiltshire. However, I couldn’t agree more with Charlotte Watkins (letter, May 22) that the Barrow Farm application offers nothing tangible to the town or our community.

It is understandable that residents in the north of Chippenham object to planning applications near them and residents in the south object to applications in the south, but this does not make for good planning and is not good for the town.

Without a Core Strategy in place the county is vulnerable to rogue applications of the type we are seeing at Barrow Farm and there will be more. I would like to know how the council intends to deal with these. All new applications should be considered together and measured against their merits for the town, rather than passed on a first- come first-served basis, but only once the new planning strategy for Chippenham has been consulted upon and considered by the inspector over the next six to nine months. The development issues surrounding Chippenham present us all with a limited window of opportunity not to be missed in shaping our future. Also, it should be remembered that developers will be required to pay around £4,000 for every house they build towards the new Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and with a minimum of 4,500 houses this adds up to around £18m or more. Surely we should be using every ounce of energy to ensure this money is used for improvements to our town instead of fighting what appears to be inevitable?

Much of this money will go towards new schools and medical facilities to support the increased population but we also desperately need to ensure that we get better roads and increased central car parking and community space.

A town with the right infrastructure will undoubtedly help to attract key investors and national chains such as at St Stephen’s Place in Trowbridge with its multi-screen cinema and bars and restaurants.

The Bath Road site is perfectly positioned for this but instead we have a mediocre scheme from the developers offering unattractive tin retail sheds and insufficient car parking in the last underdeveloped site in the town centre. A town with some of the highest performing schools in the country, exemplary road and rail links, a Georgian High Street and beautiful river, not to mention the proposed new £21m college re-development, surely deserves better than this.

We need to all pull together and keep our eyes on the money that will come about as a result of the new houses.

Melody Thompson, Chippenham town councillor.