THE owners of Chippenham Cattle Market have shelved plans to move to a new purpose-built market.

Peter Kingwill, the director of Chippenham Livestock Market, said they had no plans to find a new site or build a new market for the foreseeable future.

He said he could envisage a situation where the cattle market would remain on land it rents from North Wiltshire District Council in Cocklebury Road and share the site with the new county Record Office.

"There is room on this site for the livestock market and a record office," he said.

He said the Record Office plans and the development brief could rumble on for some years.

"We are looking to be staying put for this gloomy period of agriculture, though the market has been going very well since the re-opening after foot and mouth," he said.

"It's difficult when the air is full of ifs and buts and maybes, and we have been given no indication of a timescale.

"Until some direction is given it is difficult for us to determine what will happen but we are not in the mood to go out and create a brand new purpose- built centre without more information about the future."

Mr Kingwell's comments came as campaigners fighting to keep the Record Office in Trowbridge stepped up their fight.

They have seized on the Cocklebury Road development brief, which was released in May and is now out for consultation, as evidence that the Chippenham site is flawed.

They point to traffic congestion in Cocklebury Road and say the one-way system would make getting to the site difficult. They say a multi-million pound flyover would be needed over the railway to make the site accessible.

But North Wiltshire District Council leader Coun David Packham denied the brief challenged the plans to build the new Record Office in Chippenham.

"The livestock market site provides a wonderful opportunity for relocating the Record Office," he said

"It is an ideal location close to the town centre, close to a main line railway station, and close to the M4."

Coun Sandie Webb, a member of the county council and Chippenham Town Council, said: "It's easy for them to take selective bits from the report without taking an overall view."

She said campaigners for the Trowbridge site were grasping at straws and the Chippenham site would be easily accessible from Swindon, and the 60 per cent of users who came from outside the county.

The development brief was instigated by the district council to give guidance to planners on the future of the Cocklebury Road area, including Langley Park and the land to the north and south of the railway line.

David Evans, the district council's principal economic regeneration officer, is awaiting the response from the highways authority regarding the road infrastructure in the area.

"If they say the uses will not fit in then we will have to think about either changing the proposed uses, or bringing up the subject of a link road again.

"But that is some way down the line and the current brief is working on the assumption a relief road isn't needed."