WILTSHIRE Council has performed a drastic U-turn after removing the proposed Eastern Link Road and development of houses from the new Chippenham Site Allocation Plan (CSA Plan).

The revised document – which will set out how many houses should be built within the town – was released last Friday after a planning inspector previously suspended a planning enquiry into the document last November, due to a lack of evidence.

The new document is due to be discussed at a full council meeting next Tuesday before it is expected to be re-submitted to the inspector in September.

“It’s a great step forward to preserve the Avon Valley and I welcome the decision,” said Councillor Chris Caswill, a member of Campaign Against Urban Sprawl to the East (CAUSE).

“I’m pleased the council has listened to local residents and taken the sensible decision that they should have done several months ago.

“The Rawlings Green development is still a major concern and we’ll continue to campaign against it mainly because of traffic implications. I don’t believe the road there is going to be a benefit.

“There are still more houses than needed by the target and I don’t think it’s taking into account brownfield sites.”

According to the Wiltshire Core Strategy, about 5,090 new homes should be provided in the Chippenham area and ‘at least’ 4,510 of these should be at Chippenham.

About 2,625 of these homes should be identified in strategic sites, which include Hunters Moon, South West Chippenham, Rawlings Green and North Chippenham.

Ian James, a Bremhill parish councillor, said: “I would like to thank all the residents of Bremhill Parish who contributed to the evidence for the examination in public in November.

“This evidence was put together by a small dedicated team from the parish and Chippenham town which examined the council documents in detail.

“The response was understood by the planning inspector Patrick Whitehead who instructed the council to review the strategy and present a modified CSA Plan.

“We hope that the council will stand by the community and resist any additional attempt by developers to build in the river Avon and Marden valleys in the future.”