The town council has decided it will organise its own meeting on the personal rapid transport (PRT) system, also known as the pods, after DDC said it would not hold one in the near future.

DDC instead said it will consult with the public once proposals are sufficiently detailed to give people ‘meaningful information’ including the commercial viability of whatever transport scheme is chosen.

At a meeting on Tuesday last week town councillors unanimously agreed to reject the PRT proposals and pilot scheme saying it is ‘inappropriate for and unacceptable to the people of Daventry’ and to hold their own public meeting where officers and councillors from DDC will be invited to give townspeople the opportunity to ask questions on the PRT proposals.

Lynne Taylor, leader of the town council, said: “A lot of comments we received from the public show they believe they’ve not been informed and they don’t know what a PRT system would mean for the town and they are getting more entrenched in their views.

“The district council said there’s not plans out there yet and that it hasn’t looked into the system it would use.

“Our decision was unanimous because we felt that the public isn’t being listened to.”

Town councillors also heard from Steve Tubb who went to a conference on PRT held at Heathrow last month where the first pod network is being built and tested, and where DDC’s Simon Bowers spoke about implementing a similar scheme in Daventry.

A date for the public meeting is yet to be announced but the town council expects it to be in the near future.

Ian Vincent, managing director of DDC, said: “It is disappointing and rather surprising that the town council has already made a decision rejecting one form of innovative public transport in the knowledge that the district council is still exploring a wide range of options including PRT.

“In the case of PRT, the district council has established a PRT advisory group to help assess this particular option, and this group includes some representatives of the town council.

“We are some way off deciding the most appropriate public transport system for the town’s future and see little benefit in consulting on a narrow range of partially developed options at this stage.

He added: “The district council will carry out an extensive public consultation exercise when proposals are sufficiently detailed, including their commercial viability, to give the public meaningful information upon which they can comment.