The Devizing of a Plan

A personal view of the Devizes Neighbourhood Plan and the referendum on Thursday at the Town Hall All careful plans of men may fail and fall And falter, crumble; leaving broken stone No reason to devise no plan at all For no man lives by wild chance alone There has been an edict from on high “Thou shalt build houses here within ten years Three hundred homes and thirty three.” Then why Not have a say and ease those planning fears This Plan has seemed quite hard to understand To many folk irrelevant, a bore Yet now the vital hour is at hand The issue far too pressing to ignore “What consultation has there been?” the voice Comes from the floor, comes loud and with an edge “No one told us that we had a choice And where are all the leaflets, in the hedge?” It goes like this; the Trust have made a plan Consulted up the Brittox, in the post Collated all the info, then began To work out where we wanted homes the most They spoke with parish councils, factored in The traffic, schools, the shops and open space They put in measures to avoid the sin Of building ugly stuff that spoils the place Without the Plan the builders have free rein To ride roughshod across our lovely land At which point, just don’t bother to complain The horse has bolted, galloping, unmanned If jobs for boys there are let them be ours Let local builders lay their firm foundations On brownfield sites, not green fields full of flowers With guidelines from the Plan’s considerations No plan is perfect; yet no plan at all Will simply give us no control, not clever Consider this; vote Yes at the Town Hall Or mourn the loss of favoured fields, forever by Gail