A BID to remove the land at Quakers Walk in Devizes from Kennet's Local Plan failed to win support from enough councillors.

The Local Plan was adopted last year but Jeff Ody, a Devizes Guardians councillor on Kennet District Council, proposed that the Quakers Walk site should be removed from the Local Plan for housing following a recommendation by Chris Frost, the inspector who granted planning permission for up to 150 homes on the former Kverneland agricultural site in Folly Road. He suggested that Kennet look again at the need to build on greenfield land.

Kennet's officers said despite the approval for Kverneland and the former Spitalcroft allotment site in London Road for housing the number of houses would only exceed the Structure Plan by four per cent and said there was no need to remove the Quakers Walk site from the Local Plan.

At a meeting of Kennet's planning policies executive committee last Thursday Coun Ody said: "The core issue is the permanent loss of an open space amenity. We don't need the Quakers Walk supply. Why not take it out of the allocations and save this greenfield site for posterity?"

His proposal only received the support of one other councillor, Katherine Callow, and was therefore lost. At the same meeting the committee approved a planning brief for the Quakers Walk site.