FEARS are growing for residents in Trowbridge and the surrounding villages about land identified by Wiltshire Council for additional homes to meet overall housing requirements in the county.

Residents in Drynham Lane have raised concerns about land near them that has been included in the informal consultation on options for the Wiltshire Site Allocations Development Plan Document.

The council is looking for land across Wiltshire to ensure the delivery of the Wiltshire Core Strategy housing requirement of 42,000 homes over the next 12 years, with Trowbridge asked to find a further 1,649 homes.

However, Drynham Lane residents are angry that they have not been given enough information about the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) site near them.

Jannette Robinson, who moved from Essex to her Drynham Lane home at the beginning of the year, said: “Towards the end of June and early July, my neighbours and I were aware of surveyors taking measurements along the length of Drynham Lane and in the fields beyond.

“On ringing the council, I was referred to their website knowing how time consuming and complicated this is to navigate I convinced them to send me the relevant paper documents of the latest proposal.

“I was very concerned to see that the proposed development went way above and beyond anything I’d seen contained in the core development strategy due to the need to find approximately a further 1,500 houses.”

Mrs Robinson said she had contacted the council before buying her house to ensure there was no development planned in the area and was assured there were “no further plans for development in the pipeline”.

Prospective purchasers for the Drynham Lane site, Coulston Estates, believe the site could accommodate around 200 homes and could potentially be delivered within the current five-year housing supply period.

Southwick councillor Horace Prickett has also expressed his concern that the parish councils were only given a chance to have their say on the informal consultation on the Site Allocations DPD over six weeks from June to August.

He said: “We had already agreed the core strategy and the revised settlement boundaries and now these additional sites are being looked at. Anything sent to parish councils during July and August will get short shrift as it is usually the holiday period, so we have not had a chance to have a say.”

A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said: “We are preparing a Housing Site Allocations Plan. At this stage no draft plan has been prepared and no decisions made on which sites to allocate within the plan.

“We have been engaging with parish councils to provide them with the opportunity to inform the development of the plan. Earlier this year, parish councils already had opportunities to provide comments on this and this recent consultation was another opportunity for those who did not respond.

“We are aware this latest consultation coincided with the summer period but parishes were given six weeks to respond and extensions have been granted on request.  

“This second opportunity, together with the consultation earlier in the year, means they have had time and opportunities to have their say.”