AS A member of the Melksham Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group I read your “Second time proves unlucky for centre” article (Wiltshire Times, June 10) saying “the town’s neighbourhood planning team has earmarked the land for possible housing” and I wonder where this came from?

We’re not a “planning team” and we have not earmarked land for anything. We are a steering group tasked with identifying potential development land and taking this to public consultation. We currently have no authority or mandate to make any decisions and any plan submission will need to be strictly evidence-based and adopted by referendum.

You quoted Councillor Jon Hubbard as saying “I was very disappointed at the planning team’s decision to do away with Canberra” surely this can’t be accurate as there has not been, and there can’t be, any such decision by us.

However, I think it would be irresponsible for us not to highlight any potential development land, even including the hospital site, in a similar way to prompt comment and provide more evidence of and data from public engagement.

Our efforts to secure a Neighbourhood Plan, which deals mainly with land-use, is challenging enough, with our local authority granting so much on appeal because not enough development land has been identified, without media sensationalising it in this way.

We want people to attend the “open house” events and make considered comments not storm them in protest. I hope we’ll be coming up with a host of questions/suggestions, some contentious, which will make people really think about how they want their town to develop.

We don’t need to visit the Canberra, if anything that would compromise our position. It’s on council-owned land and if there’s a case for it not being touched then the case for this needs making strongly, supported by evidence, as part of the consultation process.

Colin Goodhind, Chairman, Melksham Community Area Partnership