MEMBERS of Wellington Town Council have been told they will need to get “noisy” if they are to have any say about future housing developments in the area.

Local councillors are growing increasingly concerned that more and more housing developments could be given the go-ahead in Wellington by Somerset Council with the Government looking at achieving increasing targets for new homes being built across the country.

The issue came up at the town council’s monthly meeting on Monday (June 2) where councillors said they could either say nothing about developments and let them just go-ahead or do something and shout about it.

Cllr Justin Cole had already questioned what Wellington’s councillors on the Somerset unitary authority had done in standing up for the area about the controversial imminent three-month closure of the Chelston link road and Junction 26 on the M5 motorway.

And Cllr Marcus Barr, in responding to Cllr Cole’s question, turned the discussion away from the road closure to future housing in the town with fears that Wellington’s current infrastructure could not cope.

“When you have the Government putting pressure on Somerset Council to build more and more houses and the Government giving out incentives to do so, the unitary authority isn’t going to say no,” he said.

“You’ve got the landowners, the developers and the council and it will always be the council who comes out of it with the most money. Nothing is going to change.”

It was inferred that with Somerset Council in financial dire straits, it would always be keen for more housing developments with money coming its way with each new home built.

Cllr Steve Mercer said there was “no joined-up thinking” about housing developments being given the green light and Wellington having the facilities and services to keep up with a growing population.

“We will need to make a hell of a lot of noise on a lot of things in the future to get some joined-up thinking,” he said. “We have to start being noisy at town council level!”

Cllr Justin Cole said that officers who were making decisions at Somerset Council were being paid by local residents through the council tax and they “should have a sway.”

Cllr Andy Govier said: “Anyone can put in a planning application to build anywhere in the country although they might not necessarily get the permission.

“But it’s open season at the moment for developers to put forward speculative planning applications and schemes.

“We do need, as a town council, to put pressure on county and national government. The big developers have got deep pockets to support their applications and we haven’t got the deep pockets to oppose them.”

The whole issue could be something to be looked at by a possible Town Council Forum for Somerset which will allow chief executives and town clerks to meet on a regular basis to discuss operational and strategic matters of interest.

Wellington Town Council’s chief executive and town clerk Dave Farrow had suggested the idea to the Somerset Association of Local Councils.