SIR: The consultation for Your Place Your Plan has been open for over three weeks and the members of the Save South Winchester Campaign Group (SSWCG) have been looking carefully at both the content of the draft plan and the consultation questions. We echo the city council’s call for as many people to make their views known as possible, although a lengthy draft plan, with 12 accompanying documents, makes understanding and responding to the many questions in the consultation not an easy task.

The SSWCG believes that none of the four housing options presented offers the best choice, and two of them include the risk of large scale development on greenfield land south of Winchester. The Save South Winchester (SSW) petition attracted 5,000 signatures and the campaign counts 1,300 Facebook followers who share concerns about such potential development. There is a preferable and more sustainable fifth option, which the Chronicle described last week, which would avoid this, and we urge WCC to consider this closely.

As announced at the SSW demo on February 28, we now offer guidance to these supporters to help them input to Your Place Your Plan. We have tried to get to the essence of what a local plan should be, which is how to deliver sustainable new development; supporters can respond either simply to this essence of where to build needed new homes, or in more detail to the longer consultation.

We urge WCC to consider the fifth option; and we also urge Winchester district residents to look at our guidance and support the fifth option when making their input to the consultation. They can find this guidance on the Save South Winchester Campaign Facebook page or website www.sswcg.co.uk.

Chris Beddoes

Chair of Save South Winchester Campaign Group,

South End Close,

Hursley