CHIPPENHAM Town Council no longer has any vote on strategic planning for the town, which is all decided at county level.

However, it is allowed to consult on important issues, such as the county’s latest attempt at the local Core Strategy that they had made such a hash of previously. Which is why all but one town councillor attended last week’s council meeting, along with a number of members of the public including myself, to decide their view on Wiltshire’s latest attempt, titled the Chippenham Site Allocations Plan. Or they could have, except for an extraordinarily inept performance as chairman by our current mayor.

During a debate that became very disjointed, more through his interventions than anything else, he made a statement of his own views in support of the proposals, quoting favourable comparative percentages to proposed development in other large Wiltshire towns.

Unfortunately, It was subsequently pointed out to him that he had used a headline figure, for total houses to be built in Chippenham over the period, that was much lower than that contained in the proposals. Having been shown the correct page by the deputy chief executive, the mayor conceded that he “hadn’t seen that”.

The end result, when he peremptorily brought the debate to an end before some councillors had even had a chance to speak, subsequently instructing them to send their own comments directly to the county, was that no decision was made on any overall response from the town council to a consultation that concludes before their next full meeting can be convened.

If this was an example of how our local government works, is it any wonder that citizens are currently having to contend with so many controversial planning proposals from speculative developers?

MALCOLM TOOGOOD Sandpiper Gardens Chippenham