MORE than 2,000 ratepayers and residents have previously signed petitions to the council objecting to a road in the Hilperton Gap area, and there are hundreds more signatures confirming that if any road is really necessary, the alternative route to the east of Hilperton would be preferable.

This route was planned by Wiltshire County Council over 20 years ago, but was apparently put on hold until such time as Paxcroft was developed and the Southern bypass built.

These have now happened. So why ruin open land to the east of Trowbridge with a link road to nowhere?

As for the comments from certain residents that they moved into Hilperton village in the belief that a new road would be built, this does not equate with the statements from the WWDC planning department over the last two or three years.

As recently as June 19 they reiterated that they have never had plans to build a road across Hilperton Gap. Just as many residents in the area, if not more, have been influenced by this assurance that there would be no road.

Consideration has already been given to developing about half the open land around Hilperton in conjunction with the road if it is built, joining Hilperton, Paxcroft Mead and Trowbridge. Perhaps it is time for everyone, including all the Nimbys from the village and the Marsh, and Paxcroft Mead, to democratically join forces to work out a compromise to present to the council. How about no more development?

Someone has got it wrong, or has not been told the truth. Would anyone who has bought a house in the area in the last three years, partly on the strength of anything they were told, or not told, by the council, or as a result of council searches, like to contact the Wiltshire Times? A few already have.

P STEAR,

Horse Road,

Hilperton.