THOSE who attended an important strategic meeting planning the blueprint for Wiltshire's future development say they are increasingly confident the Tidworth area will get the additional 2,000 houses needed to create a more balanced economy.

Nigel Whitehead, of developers WPB, who attended the Examination in Public of the county structure plan in front of an inspector, said everybody at the EiP was in favour of the idea.

"Even Friends of the Earth and the Council for the Protection of Rural England agreed with the strategy - which is quite unheard of," he said.

Under the original structure plan proposal Swindon was to have taken the vast bulk of population growth with a few other smaller towns mopping up any residual expansion - but nothing was identified for the Tidworth and Ludgershall area.

Campaigners want the extra private homes to ensure the military proportion of the community doesn't increase and the imbalance damage the local economy.

David Wildman, of Tid-worth and District Chamber of Commerce told Ludger-shall Parish Council of today's economic problems and the argument put in front of the inspector.

"Our case is this - in Tidworth our economy is on the floor because the troops are in Iraq and there is nothing we can do about that.

"The best strategy is to balance the number of civilians and military by allowing an extra 2,000 homes."

He expected that by 2012 the population of Tidworth would be between 13,000 and 14,000.

Some of the additional housing could be redirected into Ludgershall as some similar economic problems have been identified in the village as in Tidworth.

Mr Wildman suggested that there might be a need for a 'visioning' meeting between Tidworth and Ludgershall to identify the area's priorities over the next 10 to 20 years.

Ludgershall chairman Chris Williams, said: "We need to be singing off the same hymn sheet to get things moving forward." The inspector is likely to report during the autumn.