MP speaks out against unwanted development in Wiltshire

North Wiltshire MP James Gray commended Mary Portas for her excellent report, The Portas Review, set out his vision for protecting Wiltshire’s high streets, and spoke out against inappropriate and unwanted housing development and out-of-town shopping in the House of Commons last night.

During a debate on the Future of Town Centres and High Streets, Mr Gray praised the outstanding community of Royal Wootton Bassett along with its high street - one of the most famous ones in Britain and around the world as a result of the way in which the townsfolk remembered our fallen soldiers.

He argued that the success of not only Royal Wootton Bassett’s high street, but also that of Calne is chiefly due to the fact that the two towns have no out-of-town shopping centres and any supermarkets are closely integrated with the rest of the high street, and warned against plans to build out-of-town shopping centres outside Malmesbury.

Mr Gray said that either of the two proposed supermarkets will be “of no benefit whatever to the town of Malmesbury,” and expressed his hope that “the local authority, when it considers this matter, will turn down both applications—from Waitrose and Sainsbury’s.”

“Malmesbury has a vibrant and superb high street with a great community, which is not dissimilar from that in neighbouring Royal Wootton Bassett. If we allow the building of two new supermarkets on the outskirts of the town or of housing, which has also been threatened around the outskirts of Malmesbury, we will land up with urban sprawl of the worst possible kind and with a reduction in the vibrancy of the high street, which would become similar to those in one or two other towns in our area,” he argued.

In his concluding remarks, Mr Gray appealed to the planning officers not to allow development on greenfield sites, such as Birds Marsh, Brynards Hill or around the Lydiards, and instead force the developers to reuse brownfield and derelict land to add vibrancy to Wiltshire’s town centres.

Hansard extract is available at http://www.jamesgray.org/in-the-chamber/backbench-business-future-of-town-centres-and-high-streets-17-01-2012 and video of James’s contribution at http://www.jamesgray.org/videos/future-of-town-centres-and-high-streets-17-01-2012