As below, the Inspector independently reached the conclusion that the eastern Westbury Bypass should be refused planning permission as the scheme was out of date and the harm which it would have caused to the landscape and to other communities was not justified by its low overall benefit.

This final conclusion was reached after a full Independent Public Planning Inquiry, held in Westbury from June to October 2008, where everyone had their say and all of the evidence was considered.

The Inspector's reasons for refusal of planning permission are straightforward and irrefutable.

The harm caused by the proposed new road would have outweighed any potential benefit.

Wiltshire (County) Council ought to have properly considered the same balance of harms to benefits.

The Inspector discounted wildlife and water concerns as objections to the scheme, but focussed upon adverse effect on the landscape.  Nobody can truthfully say that wildlife is being put higher than people.

The Bristol/Bath to South Coast Study, the BB2SC study referred to by the Inspector, was issued in 2004.   At the following South West Regional Assembly, held at County Hall, Trowbridge, in 2004, all, including WCC, agreed that A350 improvements and any A350 Westbury Bypass would be left out of their recommendations and that HGVs would be signed to the A34 as the main north-south route.  Wiltshire County Council ignored what was agreed.  Wiltshire County Council produced a planning application for its eastern Westbury Bypass in 2005, a year later.  The scheme was acknowledged to be unsatisfactory.  Wiltshire County Council spent on insistently and issued a further planning application, based upon similar outdated and unsound concepts, in 2007.   Wiltshire County Council ignored all opinion against the scheme.   Wiltshire (County) Council has now wasted near to £5M of Wiltshire council tax money on this one obviously defective highway project.

Wiltshire Council put up further spin and squandered yet more public money on futile legal consultation, before abandoning its face-saving talk of an appeal against the Planning Inspector's clear conclusion.

Having lately discovered a further £4 million black hole within finances intended for public services,  Wiltshire Council now realises that it could not have afforded to have built its bypass in any case.