Welcome to the community consultation website for the proposed new mixed-use neighbourhood at Hilperton, to Trowbridge’s North East. The proposal includes part of the area that Lightwood Strategic has been promoting under the title
Great Whaddon
Lightwood is proposing 1,300 homes with a new centre, a new school and opportunities to live, work, learn and play. We wish to create a good place to live and grow up and a neighbourhood with ready access to the countryside and in which it is natural, safe, easy and enjoyable to get around by foot and by cycle.
The purpose of this consultation is to inform the local community about the proposals and to provide an opportunity for feedback ahead of a planning application in late summer 2026.
Comments can be made using the feedback form at the Next Steps section of this website.
A public consultation event is due to be held that will provide an opportunity for people to come and talk with the project team on the emerging proposals, details of the time and venue for which are shown.
The collated feedback will be summarised within a Statement of Community Involvement that will be submitted with, and inform, the future planning application.
Statutory local engagement will then occur through the planning application process led by the Local Planning Authority, Wiltshire Council, once the application is submitted.
Public Consultation Event:
2pm-8pm Tuesday 30th June 2026
Trowbridge Rugby Football Club,
Doric Park, Paxcroft, Hilperton,
Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 6JB
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Welcome
Town and Country Planning Context
Wiltshire Council’s key policies to shape development across the County cover the period 2006-2026 and were adopted in 2015 (within its ‘Core Strategy’). For Hilperton, a Neighbourhood Plan (2018) also forms part of the approach to managing development.
During the last few years, the Council prepared a new Local Plan – the Core Strategy Review – that looked ahead to 2038. However, very significant failures were found during early Examination in Public proceedings, causing the Inspectors to recommend the Plan’s withdrawal and the Council has since taken that action. Part of Lightwood’s proposed application site formed a preferred location for residential development within the Plan.
The Council will now need to begin from scratch and a new Plan (looking forward to at least 2044) will not be adopted until the end of 2029 at best. A new draft planning strategy may be published in the latter part of 2028. The Plan will need to set out an approach to delivering around 3,500 homes per year, a figure derived from the Government’s ‘standard’ methodology for assessing local housing need.
At present the Council must use this annual figure to assess its 5-year housing and supply requirements, which is 17,500 homes. Applying a 20% buffer for past under delivery against the previously applicable lower target (of 2,000 per annum), increases the 5-year requirement to 21,000 homes. Unsurprisingly, as no up-to-date Plan is in place, the Council is nowhere near being able to show that this level of development is going to take place.
In such circumstances, national policy provides a framework to enable development proposals for housing on land not identified within adopted local policy to be permitted, subject to what is known as a ‘tilted balance’ assessment by the Council (or an appeal Inspector). Any such developments should clearly be in logical locations, and we believe that the application site can meet strategic housing needs, in a sensible place, while offering other benefits for the area.