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'Huge response' to town plan refresh





However, the results have yet to be published because a former councillor threw a spanner in the works with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the packed meeting was told.
The request was made Jan Giggins, who served on the council for some months in 2011
Town Plan Refresh chairman Chris Scorey said: “We’ve had a huge response to the household survey. I’m totally exasperated that you don’t have it in your hand.
“At 11am today the mayor and I were due to go to West Berkshire Council to formally adopt the refresh of the Hungerford Town Plan and I was due to deliver it to the printers.”
He added: “However, West Berkshire Council has cancelled the adoption meeting because of a very strange development - it appears a resident used a FOIA request to challenge the town plan and this is now effectively blocking publication.
“We’re completely bemused as to why anyone would want to prevent publication of the views of the people of Hungerford.”
Town mayor Martin Crane told those present: “Thanks for your patience, which has been stretched beyond belief.”
Mrs Giggins told the Hungerford edition of the Newbury Weekly News that she had successfully appealed to Pam Bale (Con, Pangbourne) not to adopt the Hungerford Town Plan refresh on Thursday without “first giving residents time to review it” and to decide whether, in their view, it “accurately reflects the results of the questionnaire circulated in the summer of 2011.”
She added: “The plan itself has not been circulated to the residents of Hungerford, nor indeed have the results of the survey been made publicly known.”
Her FOIA request asks when the plan was put forward for adoption and by whom; how many versions have been considered by West Berkshire Council and which West Berkshire Council officers and councillors have been consulted on the plan.
In July 2011, 2,674 questionnaires were delivered; a total of 1,228 were returned, representing a 46.3 per cent response rate.
The results show: 98 per cent of respondents feel protecting the marsh, commons and surrounding countrisde are a major priority; the same percentage want to keep the town’s traditional character; 94 per cent want to carefully control housing growth; 100 per cent wanted to ensure traffic flow and congestion was considered in all planning decisions and and 95 per cent wanted improved bus and rail services.
On the issue of new houses, a majority favoured the option of building only within settlement areas.





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