Wiltshire Council cabinet members have approved a major Chippenham development document despite demonstrations outside the Monkton Park council offices this morning.

The Chippenham Site Allocations Plan outlines proposed strategic sites to ensure the delivery of housing and employment growth for the town by 2026 to meet the requirement set by the Wiltshire Core Strategy.

The plan will be put to full council on Tuesday (July 14) after which it will be sent to the Secretary of State for full inspection.

Members of the public were gathered outside the offices ahead of the meeting before spending two hours grilling cabinet member for strategic planning councillor Toby Sturgis on the details and evidence in the plan.

Residents remain strongly concerned about an increased risk flooding and traffic issues around Station Hill caused by developments in the East of Chippenham.

The only consolation for disgruntled residents was a resolution from council leader Jane Scott to arrange a further meeting in early September for the public to put technical questions to staff from the Environment Agency and Wiltshire Council’s transport team.

Wiltshire councillor Chris Caswill said: “It’s really good that residents came in large numbers to make their points. The thing that people are really talking about here is they cannot believe they are going to put the traffic of 650 homes down Station Hill.

“This is about evidence not what people think and the evidence base is seriously flawed in many directions.”

The plans include 2,500 new homes and approximately 28 hectares of employment land on three mixed site allocations in South West Chippenham, near Rawlings Green and in East Chippenham.

Ian Humphrey, from Monkton Park, said: “I think the development paper for Chippenham has not be suffiently thought through in terms of volume, infrastructure and flooding and is fundamentally unsound."

Fellow Monkton Park resident, Andy Stevenson, added: “I have serious concerns about flooding and the lack of detail and proper assessment of the impact for the east side of Chippenham.”

Formal consultation regarding the plans saw Wiltshire Council receive 585 comments.

Worried residents at the meeting were reassured by councillors Sturgis and Scott that, to prevent flooding, no developments would take place unless surface water management achieves equivalent or less than current Greenfield rates of run-off.

Coun Sturgis said: “The Environment Agency have no objections in principle to the Chippenham Development Plan Document (DPD) they suggested there should be an increased area for flood mitigation and that’s one of the reasons it has come to cabinet today.

“This plan in their view is sound and it’s possible to mitigate the flood risk, if they had said it was not sound we would not have brought it forward.

“These robust plans will ensure future growth in the town. Development will be focused towards the town’s least sensitive areas in terms of landscape and ecology, and there will be improved access to significant areas of open space for the town via the river corridor.”