PEOPLE turned out in their droves on Saturday to support the drawing up a new Neighbourhood Plan.

More than 700 townsfolk flocked to Alton Assembly Rooms to see how the town could be expected to grow, to discuss the impact on infrastructure and services, to listen to presentations and to express their views, as part of a consultation process designed to ensure the Plan is evidence based on an understanding of the area and the views, wants and needs of the community.

While the fear of inappropriate, large-scale development and the impact on the town may have acted as a wake-up call, people were under no illusion – it was clear that Alton would have to take its share of future development, but the concern was that it should be regulated, in the right place, and accompanied by the necessary infrastructure.

Urgently required to help influence how the parish of Alton and Holybourne evolves over the next 14 years, if completed in time, the Neighbourhood Plan should offer a degree of control over the use and development of land within the parish, determining where the community would like new development to go, and putting a spoke in the wheel of overwhelming speculative development proposals.

For full story, see this week's Alton Herald.