Unsustainable plans

According to Parker a survey four years ago showed 2,600 heavy goods vehicles were heading to the north of the city daily, and it’s virtually certain that since then the total has increased. These vehicles are helping to create an ever-growing air pollution problem (you doubt that? Try running a paper towel over your windscreen next time it’s misted up overnight and see what comes off), and the obvious answer is a bypass.

But there’s a snag. The only location suitable for a northern bypass, according to Parker, is Hampton Park. (Building it would involve upgrading the single road along the already constructed Pearce roadway.) However that also just happens to be where it’s currently proposed to build 500 new homes. Parker’s thesis is simple. Under new legislation all development must be “sustainable”: it mustn’t be harmful to our kids. And deliberately blocking the only possible future bypass route clearly would be harmful.

So, he argues, Wiltshire Council should rule that the proposed construction of new homes is unsustainable at this time and will be until we know for sure whether or not a bypass is needed.

Is he right? We don’t know. But by 2026 it seems likely that even the Neverland dwellers in Trowbridge will deem a bypass essential (as it has been since throughout the 50 years I’ve lived here).

Meanwhile perhaps our local Wiltshire councillors could enlighten us by sharing with us their views on the sustainability issue? Assuming they have views, that is.

**A gremlin crept into my last blog about the PCC vote. I wrote that there were about 600,000 voters in Wiltshire; it should have been 500,000. I hit the wrong key and didn’t spot it. Mea culpa.

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