UNLESS Tidworth and Lud-gershall are included as an area available to accommodate some development in the emerging Wiltshire structure plan developers might have concentrate on nearby Amesbury.

Amesbury is included as a town suitable for some development and has the new 160 acre Solstice Business Park already under way.

Tidworth county councillor Mark Connolly wants as many people as possible to contact Wiltshire County Council in an effort to get his area included.

"I believe that Ludgershall and Tidworth should be added as areas for smaller scale growth," he said.

"Their exclusion from this list runs contrary to all that the Tidworth Community Area Partnership, which includes the county council, Kennet District Council and the Ministry of Defence, have tried to achieve in the area over the last 10 years and more to make Ludgershall and Tidworth sustainable communities.

"It is also contrary to the emerging community area plan. "There is a proven need for growth in the area."

There are also good social reasons for more private housing in the area, thinks Mr Connolly.

"Tidworth has a disproportionate amount of social housing, indeed, if you include the military housing, some 85 per cent social housing," he adds.

"The fact that service personnel can be deployed at very short notice, thus massively reducing the population of the town at a stroke, means that retailers do not wish to invest in the community.

"An increase in civilian housing, along with employment land being set aside, will change this."