Harnham engulfed by a sea of new housing

Written July 2023

LOOK what’s been quietly unfolding while the entire world seems to have been in convulsions about hanging baskets. A real, concrete threat to whole swathes of our green environment.

It is misleading to claim, as Wiltshire’s Cabinet report did on Tuesday, that there has been ‘significant engagement with the local community’ over the proposed housing sites in its Local Plan Review.

As a leader of the City Council, chairman of the Neighbourhood Plan and vice chairman of the planning committee, I can assure you that nobody from Trowbridge has ‘engaged’ with me about any of this in the two years since I was elected. Even though my ward is hugely affected.

And I’ve had dozens of emails in the past few days from extremely upset residents who feel they’ve been ambushed. None of them had any idea what was in the offing, either.

The two sites identified for a total of 310 houses on either side of Coombe Road will worsen congestion at Harnham Gyratory (as will the extra 280 coming elsewhere in Harnham), and obliterate countryside which is a highly valued recreational resource for the neighbouring community.

Enormous pressure will be put on the birdlife, bugs and wildflowers of the Lime Kiln Down County Wildlife Site next door, where these new residents will naturally want to walk their dogs and let their kids run around.

Wiltshire Council is the part owner (with us) of this lovely little haven, which is maintained by your City Council with the help of dedicated volunteers and is currently alive with butterflies. There’s already another major development mooted bang opposite it, across Odstock Road. How can it survive? Where’s next?

Our Neighbourhood Plan group has had its efforts to suggest brownfield site options, focusing on identified local needs for affordable homes, rejected.

I’d encourage people to respond to this consultation and I hope we can make a difference.

But hundreds of Harnham residents objected to the estates currently gobbling up the fields along Netherhampton Road, and now even the garden centre is at risk.

I will do my very best to represent local people’s views, working across the East/West ward boundary in a non-political partnership with other Harnham councillors on behalf of the whole community.

I hope readers will forgive me if I sound as though I only care about Harnham. That’s not the case. But I’ve run out of space. Rather like Wiltshire Council, I suspect.