Wiltshire’s core strategy is finally approved by the government

Wiltshire’s core strategy – the blueprint setting out how the county will grow and develop over the next twelve years – has finally been approved by the government.

The strategy document has been in development for five years – and has spent several of those years being pored over by a senior government planning inspector, Andrew Seaman.  The inspector held two rounds of public hearings.

The document will now go to Wiltshire Council’s cabinet on December 16 with a recommendation that the full council meeting in January should approve it.  Once they do it will then be adopted by the Council.

One of the hitches in the long process was the inspector’s insistence that Wiltshire’s increase in housing numbers was too low.  In their draft document the Council had set the figure at 37,000 new homes across the county.  

This has now been raised so that the county must build 42,000 new homes by 2026.  The core strategy identifies a number of key ‘strategic housing’ sites where largescale development is required in order to meet the inspector’s target.

The main ‘strategic housing’ site in the Marlborough area is the Crown Estate land to the west of the Salisbury Road opposite the Tesco roundabout.  Once the whole Wiltshire core strategy is approved the construction of up to 220 homes on this green field site can go ahead.