PLANS for more than 800 new homes in Salisbury have stalled, after Wiltshire Council failed to agree on the proposals set to be sent to an independent government inspector.

At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, Wiltshire Council discussed draft housing allocation plans for the county, to ensure they hit government housing targets by 2026.

These include plans for 740 new homes in Netherhampton, 100 in Harnham and 10 in Paul’s Dene.

But instead of finalising the plans the council have deferred their decision until July, meaning the proposals cannot be sent to an independent inspector who will make the final decision on whether the sites are suitable.

Despite a consultation period running between July and September last year, the council will now invite further comments, with a letter scheduled to be sent out to all town and parish councils in the county within 24 hours of Tuesday’s meeting.

Before the decision to agree on the plans was tabled, the council had faced criticisms from members of the public who had responded during the initial consultation period.

Cabinet member for planning Toby Sturgis said the council had received almost 1,000 comments in response to the draft proposals, and that changes had been made to the plans in light of those comments.

Despite strong opposition from Salisbury residents and councillors the council has not proposed any changes to sites around the city. Instead an additional 14 houses have been allocated to the Salisbury housing quota, to be built in Bishopdown.

One man said the council had shown “utter contempt” for residents’ views on the plans, after only two bullet points were raised acknowledging these in the final proposal.

Addressing the cabinet he said: “Thousands of pages from hundreds of people, all worthless.

“Obviously nobody said anything worth taking account of.

“What utter, astounding arrogance in going through this charade of a process. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Others criticised the council’s transparency in presenting the plans, which are laid out within more than 8,000 pages of online documents, and said they were “too much to take in”.

Wiltshire Council leader Jane Scott said: “We do listen to the voices, that’s what we’re doing today and that’s what we have done throughout the whole of this consultation, and we will continue to do so.”