"We did begin a review of village boundaries through our Local Development Framework, but this work has yet to come into force, and has been put on the back burner due to wider reforms the Government has introduced. In 2007 our draft Core Strategy reviewed our list of which villages have development boundaries. It concluded that some villages (such as Weston and Breachwood Green) should be given boundaries where they do not have one under the Local Plan, whereas others (such as Holwell) no longer have the facilities to justify having the boundary they currently have. Pirton was unaffected by the changes - it was held to still justify having a boundary.

In 2008 we published a Land Allocations consultation with sites that the Council thought might be suitable for development. Part of that consultation included asking if any other pieces of land should be allocated for development or brought within town or village boundaries. One site was suggested at Pirton, which we subsequently consulted upon in 2009 as part of the Land Allocations Additional Suggested Sites consultation - it was numbered site 64 and covered the area west of the village bounded by Priors Hill and Shillington Road.

The new Government has made various changes to the planning system since May 2010, and we have had to concentrate instead on questions such as establishing our own locally-derived housing targets for when our current targets (contained in the East of England Plan) are abolished. A consultation on housing targets is being considered by the Council's Cabinet this evening, with a view to formally launching the public consultation on 17th February. All parish councils will be notified about that consultation.

Only once we have established how many houses the district should be accommodating will we be able to resume work on the detail of where those houses should go, and therefore whether any amendments are needed to existing town and village boundaries. We currently hope that in the summer we will be in a position to resume work on the Land Allocations document, which will include giving an indicative answer to whether we think the Pirton boundary should be enlarged to include Site 64."

The Parish Council will endeavour to keep residents informed via this website.