Wiltshire's failed 37,000 housing blueprint sparks row

In March, Wiltshire Council was told its Draft Local Plan, which aimed to deliver 37,000 houses across the county over the next 15 years, was "not fit for purpose."

The Draft Local Plan 2020-2038, which was drawn up by the previous Conservative administration between 2017 and 2024, was supposed to offer a framework for housebuilding and 160 hectares of employment land across Wiltshire.

But following a series of hearings late last year, government planning inspectors rejected the draft plan and gave the council a choice - to withdraw the plan from examination, or to request their report, which would recommend non-adoption and prolong the process.

At a meeting of Wiltshire Council's Liberal Democrat-led cabinet on Wednesday, the portfolio holder for housing, Cllr Adrian Foster, revealed £2.2 million had been spent on drawing up the 15-year plan - plus staff time, which more than doubled the cost.

Cabinet member for finance, Gavin Grant, called it "a breath-taking waste of time and public money," saying he could not support spending an extra £20,000 on requesting the inspectors' report – "an outcome that will almost certainly go against us."

Blasting the Conservative opposition, council leader Ian Thorn said: "We're talking about a phenomenal amount of public funds, which has taken us almost nowhere at all, with a Local Plan that had some fundamental weaknesses in it.

"We can withdraw it, or we can be faced with what I would describe as a £20,000 fine and a commentary from the inspectors that will be less than complimentary to this council.

"It's an appalling situation we find ourselves in - quite unacceptable."

He said that the final decision would rest with all 98 members of the full council, but added: "Assuming full council agrees to withdraw the local plan, we then start again on a new local plan."

Opposition leader Cllr Richard Clewer, who was council leader prior to the 2025 election, said the failure was not with the plan, but with the Labour government moving the goalposts.

"All the advice, from officers and external consultants, was that the plan would go through. The government has changed an awful lot of the rules," he said.

He urged the council to challenge the inspectors. "I read some of the comments from the inspectorate with bemusement. I'm personally concerned we're not challenging the inspectorate.

"To simply acquiesce, to push bigger housing numbers through, seems wrong.

"Planning is a serious thing. We, as a previous administration, tried very hard to make sure we were complying with the requirements of the local plan and that we were providing certainty for developers and residents as to what would be built where.

"As it is, we have a free-for-all with sites that are being built on with speculative applications. They are coming in all over the place.

"The sooner we have a local plan, the sooner we don't have speculative applications."

He said rewriting the plan would "delay that by many years."

But Cllr Thorn said the opposition leader was ignoring "the laughing stock we were at examination in terms of the ridiculously short plan period, which our barrister did the very best he could to defend, but frankly was indefensible.

He also slammed "the community that was designed for somewhere in the southwest of the county, but nobody was quite sure where."

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He said: "The inspectorate has been absolutely crystal clear in terms of the myriad of weaknesses in the plan that your administration took throughout the process.

"The idea of pushing back on what is such a comprehensive critique of the plan, and expecting to get a different result, is a fantasy.

"The plan that your administration presented... was fatally flawed, not in one sense but again, and again, and again."

Cabinet members voted to recommend to the full council, which meets later this month, that the Draft Local Plan is withdrawn and that a new local plan is drawn up.