So we now know what we had previously suspected. Wiltshire Council has published its plans for Chippenham’s additional housing and industrial areas.

If they are implemented as published, the town will be quite simply surrounded by concrete on all sides.

Hundreds of acres of green fields will be lost on the north, south east and south west of the town.

The council has simply rolled over in the face of arguments and pressures from the well-heeled developers, backed by a government that seems to favour development of the countryside at all costs.

It is also extraordinary that the council has done a complete U-turn and wants to allow hundreds of houses and a large employment zone to be built across the River Avon valley between Chippenham and Bremhill. If this was unacceptable two years ago, why is it now to be welcomed? How will Cocklebury Road and Station Hill cope with traffic from over 1,000 more houses?

These and many more questions still need to be asked when the public consultation begins on February 23.

Of course residents will have to work hard to have their voices heard, if past consultations are anything to go by, but I hope and believe that Chippenham people will want to have their say, and not just accept what the developers and the council in Trowbridge want to impose on the town.

For my part, I will do all I can to help with that.

Coun Chris Caswill, Chippenham Monkton ward (Independent).