I have just been invited to join a Facebook group; Save Malmesbury From Unwanted Housing Development.

Apparently, there are plans to build more houses into the town and this Facebook group is certainly highlighting a few contentious issues, such as oversubscribed schools, lack of jobs, flooding and more. It's definitely worth following this up and getting your views heard:

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=127132280634061

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800 on Filands and Whychurch fields?
200 0n Park Road?

Housing developers are considering building 1,000 new houses in Malmesbury. 800 are proposed in the north-east of the town on Filands and Whychurch fields, 200 are proposed off Park Road. Currently both sites are farm land.

1,000 houses is a 40% increase in housing in Malmesbury. This would introduce significant new pressures on schools, health care, employment, traffic, parking, conservation etc. Malmesbury is already creaking with nearly 600 new houses built since 2004– a housing increase of more than 25% in six years.

The new coalition government proposes that local communities will control housing and planning decisions. This means future development should reflect locally identified needs and not development imposed from outside.

Your views will count

The Town Council has invited the developers to present their proposals to the Town Council Planning Committee Meeting at on Tuesday 14th September at 7pm in the Town Hall. The meeting is open to the public.

What can you do?

• Please come and make your views known to the Council and developers on Tuesday 14th September at 7pm in the Town Hall
• Malmesbury Residents Association are currently working on responses to these proposals. Why not join (£4 per year), let us have your views and keep up to date.

Email mspwra@ymail.com

Can I apologise for that slightly incoherent ‘rant’ at the end of last night’s Town Council Planning Meeting. Despite recent council experiences with respect to securing the future of the Specialist Learning Centre at the Primary School, I found the Planning Meeting a frustrating and mildly depressing event.

I was staggered that the Planning Committee started the meeting by saying that their role in any planning application was a tick-boxing exercise and, as yet, they had not had any formal application from Gleeson. For them to then deny any knowledge of the Gleeson proposals and feel unable to respond in the best interests of the Malmesbury Residents was desperately sad. I was certainly expecting more passion (from these long-term residents) for their home town and also some evidence that they’d used their meetings in recent years to consider the long-term effects of an expanding population on the town’s infrastructure. Surely a Planning Committee needs to have a strategic view before any formal application arrives, so that they can respond appropriately?

My comments at the end of the meeting were driven from a concern that the meeting had identified action points, but no actions – in my experience, you can follow due-process to the letter, but fail to deliver spectacularly. My main concern was that there was no clarity on who would be committing to pulling this exercise together.

Can I suggest that the meeting aims to pull together representatives from every key group in Malmesbury and put a structure around those groups to analyse the pros and cons of the Gleeson proposal – I’m afraid to say that there will be benefits and we should acknowledge those to present a balanced picture.

The experience with the SLC showed that you can’t just say ‘No’ to the council (whether that the town or county bodies), but you can get their support with good reasoned campaigns – once you’ve got their support, then you’re halfway to succeeding.

I look forward to hearing that the next meeting has been arranged and would be happy to involved… let’s see what’s happened in a week’s time… hopefully I won’t feel need to rant again.

Regards, Pete.

I must also say what a frustrating meeting last night, questions could not really be answered.
surley if such a structure is going to be built, it will block lovely views of the abbey,surround a public foot path and create noise around Conygre Mead which is a local nature reserve.
I thought planning permissions could be stopped if it will affect these issues especially Conygre Mead?

Just a bit of brain storming, I would like to suggest that perhaps there could be arranged regular informal meetings for non organizers to get to know faces and exchange ideas and information face to face as e-mail is excellent but you do need the social side too. At official meetings not everyone gets the chance to speak and when they do it is often time limited and a quick point without discussion and sometimes without answers. I feel to get the most from the public they must be made to feel involved and listened too as often people sit on the side lines and wander off moaning but failing to take part. Quality of protest may be most important but sometimes shear numbers is what counts.

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Nicely put into perspective and very inspiring!

I would love to think that HRH is aware of Malmesbury's latest threat of invasion as it would definitely put a new slant on things.

I think that this whole situation has really helped to pull us all together and will benefit the community. With good leadership and sustained momentum we should all be able to make a decent and positive contribution towards a successful outcome. I for one am looking forward to an increase in social activity brought about by this campaign. Malmesbury's pubs should enjoy the benefits of the new alliances of course

Having so many people turn out to express their views at the Public Town Council Planning meeting was excellent. I believe the outcome from this meeting was to have a single united campaign, led by the Town Council, to stop further developments in Malmesbury. See how the paper reported the rallying cry of the Mayor. To this aim a follow-up meeting was to be arranged to bring the interested parties and groups together.

It was also recommended, and supported by the meeting, that this very website was to be the central point for communication.

So I was disappointed not to see any reference, both here and on the Town Hall website, to the follow-up meeting held last Friday, where at least one member of the public, there may have been others, was turned away from this meeting as it was by invitation only.

Does anybody know what is currently happening and how we can feed into this process, know who is involved and keep up to date on what is happening?