I have recently received a letter from Swindon Council regarding my objections to certain parts of the Swindon Borough Local Plan, First Deposit Draft.

These were five, well researched logical objections.

The council has printed its response to each objection with an accompanying decision reject in each case.

Now I am either very stupid or very naive, but when I read a plan prepared by the hired officers of the town council, elected by the people, then I expect them to take note of my input and present it along with all the others to an independent arbiter at a hearing attended by all those making representations.

If the tone of the representations is such that the plan is not acceptable to the people, then our employees need to go back to the drawing board and come up with one that works and is acceptable.

How can the planners be responsible for preparing and presenting the plan and then also be the judges of the merits of the objections?

If this is the case then the whole thing is a farce, a waste of time, money and resources that could be more usefully utilised elsewhere.

They now advise me that we are entering the consultation on the Local Plan (Revised Deposit Draft) and that formal comments may be made on the plan.

Is there any point? Should I spend hours poring over this in the library again just to have my representations rejected again? Am I alone with this sense of frustration and feeling of hopelessness?

Maybe we could read some comments and views of our elected councillors which hopefully would give some indication of the opinions of the people of Swindon.

George Matheson

Stratton