LUDGERSHALL is to get a new primary school as a direct result of the Army moving thousands of soldiers out of Germany.

At a meeting in Tidworth on Wednesday evening, the military revealed their amended masterplan following weeks of public consultation.

The new school will be built on land currently home to Corunna Barracks.

Ludgershall will also house 300 units of service family accommodation (SFA).

Tidworth on the other hand is to have no new SFA but the military will still buy up 100 of the homes being built there by private developers.

David Alderson, a town planner working on the project for the Defence Infra-structure Organisation, said: “There are severe contraints to using the land originally identified in Tidworth so the 100 SFA originally identified for Tidworth will be provided in Ludgershall.”

In Ludgershall, the area for development was identified with “the aim of improving connectivity between SFA and the existing community”, he added.

Under these plans, the number of soldiers based at Tidworth is to rise by 1,236 over the next five years to reach 5,397 and some present at the meeting in Tidworth’s Garrison Theatre were worried about the impact the increase will have on Tidworth’s overburdened traffic system – especially near the main entrance to the camp at VCP2.

In response to Tidworth Councillor Humphrey Jones’ assertion that ‘gridlocks’ could happen, the garrison commander Colonel James Denny said: “We do have a gate to the north which is open at peak times but not 24/7 – it is the best we can do at the moment.

“I hope my cycle route will be built, as what we want to do is to get as many people here on foot or on bicycle.”

Further afield, fears that views of the Stonehenge solstice sunrise could be obstructed by military development at Larkhill have evaporated.

Military planners have dropped any plans to build south of The Packway in Larkhill and say buildings planned north of this area would need to be 35 metres high to be seen from the stones.

However, worries that an additional 4,000 soldiers in the area will add to the traffic problems on the A303, which have followed on from a road closure near Stonehenge, were left for another day.

The public consultation into the latest changes runs until 17 June and plans can be seen in Tidworth and Ludgershall libraries or visit the website gov.uk/dio.