Dear Ms Scott (Leader of Wiltshire Council Jane Scott).

Following your self-satisfied pronouncements reported in the Salisbury Journal (Wiltshire Council fifth best in the country... says councillor’s son, October 23) please consider the following.

Your council is failing in all sorts of areas, and these are the only ones I have to deal with in my business: 1. Local searches: These take between five and eight WEEKS. This holds up property purchases, loan applications, formal agreements and costs £1,000s in lost productivity.

2. Provision of Section 106 Agreements: I have just waited four MONTHS for a planning approval because the Unilateral Agreement (Section 106 Agreement) was not produced by the council.

The due date was June 27 and I received the approval this morning. (In the end this was farmed out to a private law firm in Exeter.) I was also charged £750 for a standard legal agreement, one which the council has to produce for all residential new build approvals, which must number hundreds if not thousands a year.

Do you have any idea what the cost of delays of this magnitude to a development programme? Clearly if you do it is of absolutely no concern to you.

This is not an isolated case… 3. Having complained to two councillors I have received no response from one of them, although I was contacted by a member of the planning department, who frankly did not give me any kind of satisfactory response.

The other councillor has promised me by email to call me on a number of occasions and has failed to do so.

4. You may also recall that I objected most strongly, with reasoned and researched information against the imposition of swingeing contribution requirements for small new house developments in the council’s Core Strategy. Those arguments were ignored and demeaned by your council.

Those arguments were upheld by the planning inspector and the council has had to withdraw those contributions. However for more than two years those contribution requirements decimated small residential development in the county.

5. Complete rebuttal of the devastating effect that the council’s parking strategy for Salisbury is having on the finest city in this county and to some minds in a far wider context.

Can I expect a reply?

John Coleman

RIBA Salisbury