LORD Bathurst and his development team has had a meeting with Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown to discuss infrastructure requirements for the proposed controversial Chesterton development in the town.

CDC’s Local Plan document, which sets out future development in the area, includes the 2,350-Chesterton homes, but critics of the proposals believe the town’s infrastructure cannot cope with the development.

At the meeting, proposals to incorporate a new roundabout on to the A433 Cirencester to Bath Road were discussed.

The MP also presented his proposal of an outer ring road from the new proposed roundabout bordering the development, to the newly installed roundabout near Preston Tollgate.

As part of the proposal, traffic coming from the west of Cirencester going to the dual carriageway on the south would be taken out of the centre of Cirencester.

Mr Clifton-Brown said this would reduce the current heavy traffic congestion on the roundabouts at the hospital and near Waitrose.

He added although this would be a large project it would ease traffic congestion in Cirencester for the next 30 years.

Earlier this year, at a flood meeting held at CDC offices in Cirencester, Thames Water admitted that Cirencester would need a new sewerage connection to the Shorncote sewerage treatment plant if the Chesterton Development went ahead, including improving the sewerage situation in other parts of Chesterton.

To improve the sewerage infrastructure, the developers proposed to Mr Clifton-Brown that a number of balancing ponds (places to store floodwater) would be installed in the town.

Mr Clifton-Brown said: “Clearly the developers have put a lot of thought into the detail of the infrastructure for this big new development, including measures to ease the bus parking situation at Cirencester College. However I do think all the authorities need to think carefully about this outer ring road. By thinking strategically the traffic problems in Cirencester could be eased for a generation.”