FIVE and a quarter hours.

That’s how long I, along with half the population of Wilton, sat through a southern area planning committee meeting in an overcrowded and overheated room at the City Hall on Thursday.

When I finally staggered home at 11.30pm, wondering whether it was too late to heat up my dinner, my unsympathetic husband glanced up from his crossword and said simply: “You must be mad.”

He’s right.

Unlike me, the Wiltonians had no choice but to wait for their chance to voice concerns about a plan to build 61 homes on the EV Naish site in their town centre.

I waited just because I’m bloody-minded, and I wanted to hear the site owners’ justification for claiming that it was not viable to include any affordable homes in the project.

(Although to be fair, we were given to understand that they might possibly see their way clear to squeezing in the odd one or two, if and when their plans were passed.) I was intrigued that Wiltshire planning officers were recommending approval when there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the affordable element of the development would be anything like the 40 per cent stipulated in their core strategy.

What’s the point of having this policy at all when developers regard it merely as a starting point for negotiations?

(Memo to self: Must ask how many affordable homes have been built under Wiltshire’s reign.) Anyway, back to the townsfolk, who included a woman with the most angelic eight-week old baby. They (mostly) bore this marathon with patience and good humour.

Unlike committee chairman Fred Westmoreland, who got tetchier as the hours dragged by.

What he found particularly irritating were people who spoke for four or even five minutes instead of their allotted three. As he declared more than once.

But these weren’t professional speakers or experienced councillors, they were well-meaning, nervous amateurs doing their best. More to the point, why were so many highly controversial items on one agenda?

There were necessarily lengthy debates on the Salisbury riverside piazza, the White Hart hotel extension, two housing plans that upset a lot of residents in Pitton and Harnham, and the future of a cherished right of way at Durnford.

If that’s good agenda management, I’m a monkey’s uncle.

It’s not fair to expect members of the public, caught up in the planning system through no fault of their own, to hang about all evening to fight their corner at the end of a working day.

I know councillors put in long hours, too. The remedy, however, is in their hands. More frequent, shorter meetings perhaps?

And it must not involve these meetings beginning at 3pm. I’ve heard that one Wiltshire bigwig favours the idea.

But it would prevent huge numbers of working people from taking part in our democracy.

anneriddle36@gmail.com