WCC held an exhibition to display Compulsory Purchase Orders of land, but with no CPOs to show...!

Wiltshire County Council had a centre-spread (at our cost, of course) in the White Horse News which proclaimed that draft Compulsory Purchase Orders, for the land to build its eastern Westbury bypass on, would form part of its exhibition at the Laverton Hall on 28-30 June 2007.  This is also in WCC's leaflet.

Draft CPOs were not on display.  This was confirmed by the WCC Highways officer we spoke to there.

The Government Article 14 Directive putting WCC's bypass scheme on hold was issued on 21 June '07.

We suspect that this left WCC on a back foot, such that it pulled the Compulsory Purchase Orders.

WCC's big bypass exhibition actually had no real purpose without showing the CPOs.  There were some unreferenced drawings of land parcels.  Little else about the WCC Westbury Bypass exhibition was new.

Another odd twist was 'news' in the Wiltshire Times of 20 July '07 about the Westbury Bypass exhibition,
of three weeks previously..., which said that CPOs were on display.  They were not, of course.

The White Horse News of 2 August 2007 carried the same strange untrue WCC statement about the Orders and repeated WCC's spin that its eastern bypass scheme was approved (when it has not been).

WCC's Westbury Bypass web-site wrongly says that land purchase orders were on display at the exhibition.

We remember how WCC presented a very misleading scenario of the funding situation, firstly to us, where it was queried, then the same to Westbury Town Council.  It is now well established, from various follow-ups, that the 'December '06 DfT letter', which was presented to imply that funding was progressing, was fiction.

We recall that Andrew Murrison MP was concerned that a planning inquiry should cause no overall delay.
Dr Murrison was reassured that a planning inquiry and CPO inquiry would take place simultaneously. However, Wiltshire County Council's CPO non-issue has been the delaying factor, after all.

WCC's proposed Compulsory Purchase Orders were not sent to the Government until October '07.

The CPO Schedule is deficient, as the only named utility company is Southern Electric.