A ROW over the development of a new primary school and more than 170 houses on two sites in Malmesbury has divided the town.

An emergency town council meeting was attended by 14 residents who aired their conflicting views with councillors last week.

Although the council voted against two outline planning applications for housing and approved the building of a new school, many different opinions were thrown across the table.

The new school was originally planned for the old secondary school site at Filands, but after public consultation Wiltshire County Council decided to propose a new school building on the current site at Tetbury Hill.

The new school cannot be constructed without cash from the sale of six acres of county council land at Filands for 140 homes and an acre of land in front of the primary school for 35 houses. A third of both sites will be used for affordable housing.

The land is expected to raise £7m, £4.5m of which would be used as the Private Fund Initiative contribution for the new comprehensive. The remaining £2.4m would be used to build the new primary school.

Many residents and councillors, however, are concerned the two sites will be overdeveloped and the number of houses planned is too many.

Major Charles Vernon said the consultation report leading to the plans was totally unsatisfactory.

He said: "This is the fault of the county council. It has sat on its hands for a year. That is why we are now in a rush to do things."

Coun Patrick Goldstone agreed, saying the scheme bore very little resemblance to the consultation carried out earlier in the year.

Coun Ann Davis asked for the consultation process to be extended to find out what Malmesbury residents wanted. "Otherwise the school will end up with nothing yet again," she said.

School governor Tristan Cork disagreed and said the consultation had been staggeringly good and the county council had recognised concerns that a primary school at Filands was too far out of the town.

But many were still unhappy with the report. One major concern was that the housing on Filands extended beyond the area of the former secondary school and encroached on to a Greenfield site on the edge of the town.

Mary Hill, of Malmesbury River Valley Trust, said she accepted a certain amount of development on Filands was necessary.

She said: "The town council is not voting against building on the site. It is voting against the number of houses the county council is trying to force the town to accept"

Caroline Pym of the Civic Trust said: "There is no reference to the impact on the area of Malmesbury. There are other sites in the other six towns in north Wiltshire.

"The houses should go somewhere else," she said.

Jeff Staton, head teacher of the current primary school, said the fundamental issue was the future of local children.

He said: "I am strongly in favour of this proposal. It is what is best for the children of Malmesbury. But I am concerned that it will not happen. I think for young people it would be a tragedy.

"Can we have some agreement on what is going to work inside of each plan hitting the buffers?"

Towards the end of the meeting Coun Brian Dally pointed out that there was much confusion and disagreement over the plans.

"I don't know what to think of it. We are going round in circles," he said.

County councillor John Thomson, who was not at the meeting, said the number of houses had been kept to a minimum on both sites.

He said: "In the next ten years we will get that number of houses in Malmesbury anyway and we will get nothing for it, this way we do."