PLANNING is often a complicated business, difficult to understand. In the case of the planning for Chippenham, the facts can however be very simply stated.

The council’s leadership has twice put expensively-prepared plans for thousands of additional houses in front of an inspector and twice they have failed. The costs of these failures have to be met by the Wiltshire taxpayer. This time they have been given six months to have another go, again at taxpayers’ expense. In last week’s paper there was an extraordinary contrast between the blistering editorial call for accountability for this ‘farrago’ and Councillor Toby Sturgis’s almost nonchalant denial that there is any problem here. He declared himself "slightly surprised" at the situation we now find ourselves in, while at the same time asserting that the first inspector had approved the council’s plans. This is plain wrong, as the only reason for the recent public hearing was that the first plans for Chippenham were rejected over a year ago by the previous inspector. One of the few advantages of Wiltshire’s Cabinet system of local government is that a very small number of councillors are supposed to be accountable for the huge power they have to make decisions. In this case, there is no doubt that Coun Sturgis, and Coun Lady Scott who appointed him, are the two who should ultimately be held to account for this waste of money and time. As your editorial concluded, the people of Chippenham have been “ripped off”. But those responsible don’t seem to care. With their large and docile council majority behind them, there is no sign of their being held to account. We can only wait for the next instalment in this sorry story as the council leadership decides what to do next behind closed doors in Trowbridge. And hope that they come up with some new and more acceptable proposals.

CHRIS CASWILL, Chairman, CAUSE 2015, Independent Wiltshire councillor, Chippenham Monkton