Chippenham’s Neighbourhood Plan is one step closer to completion despite challenges posed by the pandemic.

The Neighbourhood Plan has recently completed the ‘Topic Group’ stage of its development, which involved a collective of 34 members of the public who gathered evidence and drafted policy in one of the seven topic groups.

Between March and April, the group held a community survey, which asked questions created by the topic groups, to which, 400 residents returned a response.

Planning officer, Andy Conroy, who led the presentation, said: “We got some good feedback from that despite it happening at the same time as the onslaught of Covid.”

The questions related to community infrastructure, green infrastructure, transport, economy, housing and climate change in the town.

From there the steering group reviewed the draft policies and to date have agreed 20 of those policies.

Currently, work is being done to prepare the town’s shop front and advert design guide, a conservation area character appraisal and a tree planting code.

Despite a roughly two month delay due to coronavirus, the report says that ‘it may still be possible’ to conduct the public consultation next Spring.

Neighbourhood Plan is expected to be potentially ‘made’ – dependent on the public referendum – in Spring 2022.