Wiltshire Council Core Strategy, planning policy and traffic. 2011.
The new Wiltshire Council has to produce a new planning policy framework for the next 7 years. Meanwhile its planning decisions are based on remnants of the policies of the previous District Councils; not a satisfactory situation.
Consultations on a new draft Core Strategy took place at the end of 2009 and the Guardians submitted comments after holding a public meeting. The Council is currently considering the large number of comments that it had received. The number received from the Devizes area was second only to the number from the Trowbridge area.
The new Core Strategy, from which new planning policies will emerge, is due to be published, for a final opportunity for the public to comment, in June 2011 and will go forward for final government approval at the end of this year.
Planning decisions for new housing depend in part on traffic forecasts and it is now considered that the previous forecasts for Devizes are not accurate. The Council has agreed to have a new survey of Devizes traffic volumes using much better technology, such as number plate recognition cameras, to determine the numbers of vehicles which pass through the town. That survey did take place during 2010 but the Wiltshire Council has been abysmally slow in using the survey data to update traffic forecasts.
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