Looking this week at the road which has carved its way through the fields known locally as the Hilperton Gap, it seems impossible that this narrow strip of muddy gravel revealed by the removal of a hedgerow will be wide enough for two cars to pass side by side, let alone two huge container lorries.

I’m sure that once it is paved and the road markings painted, the edges re-seeded, safety fences built and street lights installed, it will become clear.

What is also becoming clear is that even before the road becomes a reality (and they’ve been talking about it for well over 30 years) the threat of development on the remaining fields is growing.

This week Wiltshire Council opened a discussion on possible future options for housing in and around Trowbridge .

Builders have not finished work on the latest giant housing estate at Castle Mead yet, but already there is a suggestion that sections of the land on the Trowbridge side of the new road should be used to provide hundreds more houses.

I’m well aware that people need homes. And I agree that, once we have filled up all the former factory land in our town centre, the edges of towns is probably the right place to build them, given the difficulties of living in Wiltshire’s villages without a car, and the pollution traffic creates.

But if we are going to build more houses, whether they’re for older people wanting to downsize, the younger generation wanting to gain independence or newcomers to the county coming here in search of work and the lovely lifestyle we all enjoy, they’re no use without the facilities to serve the people who will live in them.

So I don’t think these fields are the right place for more new homes. What we need on this side of Trowbridge more than anything else is a secondary school, catering for the huge numbers of families who have already moved into the vast new estates built over the last 20 years at Paxcroft Mead and at Staverton.

At the moment lots of families on the east side of Trowbridge drive their children across town twice daily, fearing it is not safe for them to walk or cycle.

Of those who do walk some face a two-and-a-half mile trek each way five days a week (which while it may be good for their waistlines means they catch endless winter colds as eight out of 10 teens refuse to wear sensible clothing).

A school on the Gap fields would be easy to get to from out of town for staff, and keep at least some of the land green as it could be used for playing fields.