The last round of public consultation before Wiltshire Council’s Core Strategy heads to the government for a decision came to an end last week.

The strategy will be used as a basis for determining all future developments in the county between now and 2026 making it one of the council’s most important documents.

Cabinet members are soon expected to approve any tweaks to the document before it goes to a full meeting of councillors, who will need to approve it before it can head to the Government.

A planning inspector will then be appointed and this will be the final chance for people to have their say.

The inspector will make their recommendations to the council who will then have to decide on whether to adopt it or not.

Coun Fleur de Rhé-Philipe, cabinet member for economic development and strategic planning, said: “I am really pleased with the response that we have had from the consultation.

“We now have a team of people ready to pour over the information before we move to the next step.

“Time will be of the essence because the market is picking up and if you don’t have a plan in place it leaves you more open to all sorts of proposals from developers.

“The document gains more weight as we go further down the process but at the end of the day it will need to be adopted.”

The timescale will mean councillors will decide whether to send it off to the Government in June and the planning inspector will review it by the autumn when it will come back to Wiltshire ready for adoption.

If councillors fail to adopt it the whole process would have to start again.