Big questions have been asked about an emerging blueprint for Alton with tensions rising over its credibility and content in a heated two-hour meeting in the Assembly Rooms.

Alton Town Council were due to vote on Wednesday night whether to put the current version of the draft Neighbourhood Plan (ADNP) out to public consultation.

But that move has been put on hold following pressure from residents and some councillors who feel the plan “doesn’t respect the interest of the town” and is “fundamentally flawed”.

Its compilers, the Alton Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group, have found themselves in the firing line for not including some possible housing sites – specifically like around north Alton – in the latest version, while hinting that Windmill Hill fields might be best suited for development in years to come.

Neighbourhood plans are meant to be produced by residents, for residents, with the document setting out where and how most people would like their community to develop.

So the “perplexing omission” of some sites, with claims of a conflict of interest given the links with the steering group and a former town clerk-turned-consultant, have thrown doubts over the plan’s methodology and transparency.

After two hours and 20 minutes of arguments and increasingly fraught debate, councillors agreed to a motion by Cllr Matthew Kellermann, with a hand by Cllr Matthew Bayliss, to defer putting the ADNP out to Regulation 14 consultation until it included “all of the sites” like north Alton and others, so the public gets the chance to have a say.

Cllr Graham Hill and some colleagues argued the same thing could be done during the consultation and that deferral would make tight guidelines even tougher amid the spectre of even higher housing targets being set by the government.

But like some sites around the town, it didn’t go to plan.