MP John Glen has told Parliament of people’s anger and frustration over a massive new estate to be built by Barratt Homes on the outskirts of Salisbury.

He criticised the design of the Hampton Park II development and said the decision by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to approve it had “fundamentally undermined confidence in the planning process”.

Mr Pickles could have waited a few weeks, he said, until the South Wiltshire core strategy – the development blueprint for the next 15 years - was adopted.

Instead, he had pushed through “a sub-optimally designed” scheme and ignored local people’s ideas about what would be more acceptable.

Mr Glen also warned that people in Salisbury perceive Wiltshire Council as too distant, particularly on planning issues.

He quoted cllr Ian McLennan on how the “remote” spatial planners of Trowbridge had “overruled the locals” on the need to keep a significant green space separating the city from Ford.

The MP paid tribute to cllr McLennan and cllr Bill Moss for championing the concerns of the Laverstock & Ford parish.

And he also quoted parish council chairman Ron Champion, who said the views of the parish on how many homes were suitable for the site had been “wholly ignored”.

Mr Glen told MPs that the inadequacy of consultations over the core strategy had left “a bitter taste”. People were now questioning the concept of localism, and he himself felt “considerable concern” about how it would work in reality.

“Frankly, the devil is in the detail,” he said, “and the precise mechanisms for collating, calibrating and putting together local views to create a core strategy need to be clarified.”

In the meantime he called for a ministerial review of what should happen about other unadopted core strategies in the pipeline “that appear to give opportunistic home builders a smooth ride to build sub-optimal developments”.