TOWN councillors have deferred a decision on whether they should tell Wiltshire Council they approve or not of a second bid, this time for 187 houses, on the Hilperton Gap.

On Tuesday night they delayed making a comment on the Barratt Homes bid because of out-of-date information around ecology and other matters.

Cllr Graham Hill told the town development meeting his gut feeling was that there was a lot missing from the plans.

“If we comment today we’ll be missing out on a lot of informed decisions,” he said.

“A lot of submitted paperwork is dated 2017 and it relates to changes Wiltshire Council have made in policy since then. There are things missing and there’s a lot of stuff that is horrifically out of date.”

“Before we knock it down we need to give them a chance to put in what they actually want.”

It was suggested by town clerk Lance Allan that councillors could delay until December 22 – the deadline for comments being Christmas Day.

Town council leader Stewart Palmen said: “As we’ve got time, I think we can look at it before Christmas and do some more digging.” Councillors then agreed to the delay.