Category: About Warminster: Boreham

Thursday 19th February 2026

From the Facebook page of EBBRAG:

Are you a dog walker, hiker, runner, horse rider, cyclist or just someone who enjoys Warminster’s stunning natural landscape and associated wildlife?

This photo was taken by the late Steve Climpson, who was passionate about protecting this landscape. It is the view from the public footpath adjacent the potential Home Farm development site. The view looks to Battlesbury Hill. The draft Neighbourhood Plan does not preserve the view from Battlesbury to Boreham and Bishopstrow, nor does it protect the Home Farm fields from development.

Developers are supposed to improve biodiversity and commit to providing community open spaces as part of their obligation to sustainable development, set out by Government legislation. In reality, they rarely do this. In effect, in their greed for money, natural landscapes are destroyed forever and many developers don’t even deliver the mitigations they agree to when planning permission is granted.

You can read more in our article on protecting the landscape: Red Kites And Rubble Stone – EBBRAG: https://www.ebbrag.com/boreham-history-the-unique-landscape-setting/

And for background on what Bellway, the potential developer of the Home Farm site, might be like: Bellway Homes for Warminster or would that be Hellway if it goes ahead? EBBRAG: https://www.ebbrag.com/bellway-homes-for-warminster-or-would-that-be-hellway-if-it-goes-ahead/

The other large scale developers sniffing around sites in Warminster are likely to be similar. We need to take out site selection from the draft Warminster Neighbourhood plan.

Warminster needs YOU to find a voice.

As a resident of Warminster, you will already be aware of the huge West Urban Extension/Jubilee Gardens where 1000 new homes are currently being built, with another 500 due by 2042. Did you also know that a further approximately 700+ houses are at the planning stage?

• Cley Hill View, 227 homes already approved and being advertised.
• Ashley Coombe, 77 homes; planning permission applied for.
• Westbury Road, 205 homes; rejected once in 2025, outline planning applied for again.
• Home Farm, 135 homes; planning application expected imminently (the Neighbourhood Plan suggests 90 but the developer Bellway Homes would like 135).
• Grovelands, 68 homes; building already started.

Are these homes ALL really needed?

Are they being planned in a responsible and sustainable way? They are all eating up green areas, rather than using brown field sites.

What impact will these developments have on the lives of people already living in our town?

Despite what the Town Council would have us believe, a Neighbourhood Plan does not offer Warminster protection against these speculative development bids.

The whole premise of naming a potential site in the Neighbourhood Plan is to offer legal protection for the rest of Warminster for up to five years. Consider this example – Melksham Parish Council had an adopted Neighbourhood Plan, fully supported by local residents which excluded a site Snarlton Farm from designated building. On appeal, the developer has now gone to The Secretary of State for Housing, taking the decision right out of local hands.

And consider this – by the time the current draft Neighbourhood Plan is finalised, it is likely that all of the developments listed above will already have gone through the planning process and have been approved, not just the one they have named.

What can you do?

• Register on the EBBRAG website. Our contact form is here: https://www.ebbrag.com/contact/
• Make it known to our Town Council that you do not support any more large scale developments, in the absence of improved infrastructure and local services. You can email the council here: admin@warminster-tc.gov.uk

How?

• Sign up to say you agree with our Open Letter to The Town Council: https://www.ebbrag.com/letter/
• Register your concerns in the draft Warminster Neighbourhood Plan Consultation: https://www.warminsterplan.com/
• For further details from EBBRAG visit the website: https://www.ebbrag.com/ or email EBBRAG: info@ebbrag.com

Friday 31st October 2025

A flyer is being distributed by EBBRAG (the East Boreham Business And Residents Action Group) alerting the public of Warminster of the threat of housing development (large scale) on Home Farm.

Bellway Homes have submitted a planning pre-application for houses on Home Farm, Boreham, to Wiltshire Council. (The public are not allowed to see this).

A planning inspector turned down a previous application for Home Farm in 2019.

The Warminster Neighbourhood Plan is seriously flawed.

If you are against unwanted and unsuitable development on Home Farm and want to support EBBRAG in their campaign to stop this planning disaster, please go to their website and register your name for updates and further information.

www.ebbrag.com

email: info@ebbrag.com

Friday 31st October 2025

Warminster Town Council at Odds with Residents Over New Housing Plans ~ Warminster Neighbourhood Plan is deeply flawed and written by an unaccountable consultant paid for by public funds.

Latest news from the East Boreham Business And Residents Action Group (EBBRAG):

Warminster Council at Odds with Residents Over New Housing Plans

Warminster Town Council (TC) looks increasingly out of step with its residents over proposals to open up yet more land for housing development.

A recent council survey revealed deep public concern about the strain on local services and the loss of the town’s cherished landscape. Yet, despite 61% of respondents in the recent council survey opposing development on Home Farm Land, the council has chosen to include this very site as a key area for future expansion in its draft Warminster Neighbourhood Plan.

The decision has sparked frustration among locals — especially given that the land’s controlling owners live overseas and have no direct stake in the wellbeing or character of the town. These owners have previously sought planning permission to build on the site, even though it lies outside Wiltshire’s Strategic Housing Plan to 2038 and the official town settlement boundary. On previous occasions, the most recent in 2019, a Government Planning Inspector concluded the land unsuitable for housing development.

Strong opposition to the proposal has also come from Bishopstrow House Hotel, one of the town’s largest employer, and from local Wiltshire MP Andrew Murrison, both of whom argue that such expansion risks undermining the very qualities that make Warminster distinctive. To develop Home Farm Land severely undermines the hotel’s future, as the proposed development will be in eyesight of the hotel and its gardens, thereby affecting the great economic benefit it currently brings to Warminster as a whole.

Critics say the current draft Neighbourhood Plan is deeply flawed and written by an unaccountable consultant paid for by public funds, rather than for or by residents. Warminster’s unique identity stems from its people, its historic buildings, and its remarkable setting within the surrounding landscape. Many of the town’s most valued heritage and natural assets lie precisely on its eastern edge — the very area now being targeted for development.

As the debate continues, one question looms large: will the council listen to its community and protect the town’s character, or push ahead with plans that could irreversibly alter it?

www.ebbrag.com/www.ebbrag.com/

Danny Howell writes: My photograph shows a view of Boreham. The green field near the centre of the pic, adjacent The Dene, is part of Home Farm and is under consideration for housing by Bellway Homes. They have a pre-application for planning put before Wiltshire Council (which the public are not allowed to see). And Warminster Town Council recently held a meeting with some Boreham and Bishopstrow residents asking them to agree that Home Farm should be developed, despite the fact it has previously been turned down by a planning inspector and is against the will of a large number of Warminster’s residents.