Friday 22nd February 2013
Wiltshire Core Strategy Pre-Hearing Meeting, 28th February 2013
At the first East Boreham Residents’ Action Group (EBRAG) General Meeting, held in St. John’s Church, in November 2012, the community was encouraged to write to Wiltshire Council (WC), expressing concern over residential development of Home Farm and offering support for the future Warminster development plans written by WC.
These plans are called the Core Strategy and exclude Home Farm’s land from future development, suggesting instead that all development should occur to the west of town in the area previously agreed.
In the next few months the Core Strategy will be reviewed by a Planning Inspector, who will examine the content and make a judgement, probably at the end of the year, on whether the plans should be adopted.
All those who wrote to WC should have received a letter of email from WC stating that the Wiltshire Core Strategy Pre-Hearing Meeting will take place on 28th February 2013 at the Civic Centre, Trowbridge. At this meeting, the inspector will explain the examination procedure and the content of the subsequent hearings. It has been brought to the attention of EBRAG that there is some understandable confusion amongst those who have received this letter as to what their role is and whether they should attend.
To clarify: EBRAG committee members plan to attend this meeting in order to monitor what format the examination will take, to listen to the inspector’s view on possible issues for future developments in Warminster and any arguments against the strategy being put forward. This is purely a procedural meeting and the public, although very welcome to attend, will only be allowed to ask questions relating to the procedure for the enquiry and overall Core Strategy issues to be examined. Therefore, unless members of the community have a genuine interest, they should not feel obliged to attend this meeting.
The formal hearings on the Core Strategy for Warminster will take place some time during May / June 2013 and it is at this point that EBRAG may make formal representations to the examination. At this meeting members of the community are encouraged to attend and EBRAG will advise details beforehand of dates and venues.
Following next Thursday’s pre-hearing meeting, EBRAG will distribute another newsletter with more detailed information on what, if any, the issues for Warminster are and all future relevant dates, including the examination on the website: www.ebrag.org.uk