I am deeply puzzled as to just who is in charge of the current West Wilts District Council administration. When members of the administration seek to make changes in their own recommendations on the agenda in the full council meeting, such confusion is natural.

Surely the administration did not intend to change the whole system for planning without consulting the other councils involved, the parishes and towns? Or was that common politeness just overlooked in the confusion?

If we are to have local governance by whim, ignoring and undermining the importance of good relations with other councils, with meetings lasting until nearly midnight, perhaps questions need to be asked about just where this council is going and who is in charge of what!

S SQUIRES

District Councillor,

College Ward, Trowbridge.

It is a basic principle of democracy that, when it is practicable, decisions should be made by layers of government as close as possible to the people affected by them.

It is therefore a pity that the West Wiltshire District Council has chosen to reverse this sound concept, for planning matters. Planning decisions will now be made centrally rather than by the district councillors for the areas affected, as has been the case.

Well-intentioned councillors from Warminster cannot possibly have an adequate understanding of the issues of Bradford on Avon, nor vice versa.

Nor may they be greatly interested in the advisory inputs, and their basis, of town and parish councils miles from their own stamping grounds. Yet they will make decisions which previously better qualified local councillors made.

It is also indefensible that this change was made with indecent haste without consultation and, indeed, without even informing town and parish councils that a change was proposed.

P SUTTON

Town Councillor (Liberal Democrat)

Bradford on Avon Town Council.

It was indeed a pity that no members of the press were present at last Wednesday's West Wiltshire District Council meeting. It would certainly have been interesting for your readers to hear at first hand the antics that took place in the council chamber.

More importantly, the actions of the administration in this meeting, in my opinion, did much to impair local democracy.

Key amongst the 'achievements' of the administration was to remove the power of the area committees to consider planning applications.

In a distinctly centralising move, these powers will now be concentrated into an unwieldy 23-member planning and regulatory committee!

I was only elected to the council in May, so perhaps I am still too new and too nave and not nearly jaundiced enough to realise that the true purpose of the council is to serve its members, rather than the citizens of west Wiltshire that elected them.

M ROSIER

Cllr, Melksham Woodrow.

I, like many people in west Wiltshire, cannot drive and view what is happening at West Wilts District Council with horror. I see the new Conservative-dominated administration making its mark. By removing planning from area district committees, people wishing to speak on these issues will have to travel further. Instead of decisions being made locally, they will be made centrally which must surely prolong the meetings and the process making it very difficult for people without cars to get home.

The administration has also decided not to move its offices into the town centre during the next four years, therefore council taxpayers will still be dragged out to Bradley Road.

There are other worrying signs about the way these decisions were made. The decision to remove planning from area committees was made without consulting the five towns, the parishes or the public.

Like the Conservative County Council over the Record Office issue, the new district council looks set to be remote and arbitrary, totally uninterested in local accountability and accessibility.

G HEDLEY

Trowbridge