TROWBRIDGE Town Council has deferred a decision to write to Labour’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to ask her to speed up the delivery of 2,500 homes in the Ashton Park area.

Following its General Election victory, the new Labour government announced each local planning authority would be given a tough housing target.

The move would also require councils to review the status of the green belt in their local areas to enable more homes to be built.

The Liberal Democrat-controlled town council decided not to write immediately to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

It wants to wait until it has more information on the government's green belt policy changes before outlining the council’s position in relation to the town’s future growth.

They deferred a decision at Tuesday’s full council meeting to ask for a review of the green belt around Trowbridge and for Ms Rayner to speed up the Ashton Park development of 2,500 new homes.

Trowbridge mayor Cllr Stephen Cooper said: “We have decided to defer writing until we have more information.”

The council’s chief executive will draft a letter and circulate it to all councillors to review, prior to writing to the Deputy Prime Minister.

The current Wiltshire Core Strategy to 2026 identifies Trowbridge as a principal settlement and allocates a growth rate of around 300 to 350 new homes a year.

Trowbridge town centre covers an area within a 0.4km radius circle. A 2km circle beyond the town centre, gives a 2.4km (1.5-mile) radius ‘urban circle’ with an area of 18 square kilometres. Typical population densities for larger towns are around 4,000 people per square kilometre.

The current population within the 2.4km circle is around 44,000. Following completion of the Ashton Park development, it would be around 54,000.

But if further housing development takes place in the green belt area, the population of Trowbridge could potentially top 72,000.

Officers say it is “imperative” a green belt review takes place if Trowbridge is to continue developing as a sustainable town, as nearly all other areas within the urban circle have either been developed or are protected from development due to environmental and nature conservation reasons.