SAVE Our Cirencester (SOC) is a small but committed group who are urging the people to oppose the application from Bathurst Development Limited for a huge urban extension of 2350 homes on good farmland south of Chesterton.

Cotswolds District Council (CDC) have paved the way for this far too large housing estate bolted onto the unique and historical market town of Cirencester with their flawed draft local plan. If it goes ahead Cirencester will change for the worse – forever.

There are two misconceptions that SOC says must be corrected.

The first is that this development is the only one that can enable CDC to meet government targets for new houses in the Cotswolds. This is not the case. CDC have been hopeless in properly assessing the district’s housing needs and in identifying suitable land.

Instead they have collaborated over many years with Earl Bathurst to burden Cirencester with a massive number of houses on this one single site and not bothering to do their job properly.

Their solution is not only unimaginative but its sheer scale is hugely disproportionate to a town the size of Cirencester. SOC have strong evidence of this unfairness through our analysis of similar towns.

Hardly any other towns are threatened with such a burden as Cirencester is expected to bear.

There is also a mistaken impression that it is not worth opposing the development – that it will go ahead anyway. This is most definitely not the case. Cases are emerging all over the country where wrong-headed plans have been opposed and overturned.

For example, in 2014 in Newmarket, plans for 400 houses, approved by the council, were called in for review by the secretary of state after fierce local opposition.

Eric Pickles, the then-secretary of state, had previously thrown out plans on the same site for 1200 houses – half of the number being proposed for Cirencester.

The battle for Cirencester’s future has only just started.

We ask you to do two things: Write to your councillors and to CDC with your objections.

If you prefer get onto the CDC website and register your comments there. Don’t worry about fancy words – just explain what you think about the plans.

Also, sign up to signal your support for SOC by emailing us at saveourcirencester@ outlook.com.

If you think you can help us in any practical way – in particular we need people with good analytical and communication skills to help in assembling evidence against the application – then let us know.

Don’t leave it to others; help us to save Cirencester from this unfair and unreasonable burden.

MARK PRATLEY

Chairman, Save Our Cirencester