Tuesday 27th January 2026
From the EBBRAG website and Facebook page:
A message from EBBRAG –
Housing Site Allocation Must Be Removed From The Draft Warminster Neighbourhood Plan or EBBRAG will encourage Warminster residents to vote against the Plan
Several EBBRAG Committee members attended the Town Council (TC) Extraordinary Full Council meeting on 19 January 2026, where councillors voted to move the draft Neighbourhood Plan (NP) to the next stage of consultation (called Regulation 14).
This stage invites residents to comment on the draft plan through a public survey, which was released yesterday. Completed surveys must be submitted by midnight on 23 March 2026. Your response matters — this is one of the few opportunities for residents to influence what happens next. The survey close date allows a more measured response.
What concerns us:
The draft plan includes site selection for new housing on top of the significant further development in Warminster without the necessary infrastructure in place.
Wiltshire Council’s own document, Planning for Warminster (September 2023), states that only 90 additional houses are required up to 2038, due largely to phosphate pollution affecting the River Wylye.
Despite this, the draft plan supports building more homes. Why not accept infill of 10 houses a year until 90 have been achieved rather than decimate a beautiful, unique and historic rural area on the outskirts of Warminster and outside the settlement boundary?
What happened at the meeting:
Before the meeting, EBBRAG sent a detailed letter to every Town Council member, setting out logical reasons why site selection should be removed from the plan. Unfortunately, the letter was not referenced at all during the meeting.
During the meeting, councillors asked few meaningful questions concerning the content of the plan and did not debate any aspect.
The Steering Group lead made the following claims, which we believe are misleading:
The plan will stop speculative development for five years.
This does not address what happens after five years, nor does it explain how ongoing or proposed speculative developments including Ashley Coombe, Westbury Road, Cley Hill View, Groveland’s + Jubilee Gardens (totalling around 2,144 homes) will be controlled.
The Town Council Clerk has confirmed that speculative planning applications submitted to Wiltshire Council fall outside the Neighbourhood Plan and will be considered through the normal Wiltshire Council process, not the Town Council.
The Town Council can impose conditions on selected sites.
In reality, the Town Council has no power to enforce these conditions. Past experience in Warminster shows that when developers fail to meet conditions, enforcement often falls away. The draft plan for Home Farm even mirrors the layout and access point of a planning application that was totally rejected in 2019 by a Government Appointed Planning Inspector.
What EBBRAG is doing:
EBBRAG is preparing guidance to help residents complete the survey effectively and will share this shortly. You are, of course, welcome to complete the survey independently, but we believe that using the evidence we have gathered can help strengthen your response.
EBBRAG has made contact with residents from Ashley Coombe and Westbury Road, with the intention of combining our objections to further development without supporting infrastructure into a very strong opposition.
Please feel free to contact us through our website www.ebbrag.com or through the EBBRAG Facebook page www.facebook.com/groups/389576351110879 or Instagram www.instagram.com/ebbrag_warminster/ if you have any concerns or worries. You can also email EBBRAG: info@ebbrag.com
Our aim:
Our goal is simple: to remove site selection from the draft Neighbourhood Plan, preventing further large-scale development until adequate infrastructure is in place. In addition, phosphate pollution and flooding are taken seriously and controlled or mitigated.
While we cannot advise residents how to vote in any future referendum, and we firmly believe there is much good in the plan, if site selection remains in the plan, EBBRAG may encourage residents to vote against it.
EBBRAG
email: info@ebbrag.com
website: www.ebbrag.com