Thousands of pounds awarded to local groups by area board

MELKSHAM Area Board awarded a number of grants to local initiatives at their meeting this month.

A total of £12,000 was awarded at the meeting held on Tuesday 8th September from the area board’s Community Area Grants scheme.

£5,000 was awarded to the Shurnhold Fields project to help fund the construction of a fenced car park and bike rack. 

Shurnhold Fields – a mini country park that was the former playing fields of George Ward School – is a joint project of Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Council, with the support of volunteer group, Friends of Shurnhold Fields.

Their application said, “The provision of a fenced car park and bike rack is to ensure that this open space is accessible to all from Melksham town, Melksham Without and the wider Melksham community area and not just those within walking distance from the George Ward Gardens estate. It needs to be secure to prevent vehicles and unauthorised encampments accessing the fields.”

Forest Community Centre was given £3,000 to help with the cost of repairing its roof. Their application said, “Since opening back up after the Covid closed period we have discovered a leak in our roof which needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency. However, we don’t have the funds to afford to get this work completed.”

Celebrating Age Wiltshire was given £1,500 as contribution for Melksham’s participation in a county-wide Lottery project – delivering arts and heritage events in community settings for frail, vulnerable older people unable to access concert halls or theatres.

Their application said, “Celebrating Age Wiltshire (CAW) phase 2 will use arts heritage activities to reach the most isolated older people in the Melksham area, helping to tackle loneliness and aiming to improve their health and wellbeing through creative and artistic engagement. 

“In particular, CAW will target those people who are vulnerable and socially isolated due to frailty, ill health, dementia, poor mobility or caring responsibilities. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, our work now draws on five different strands of both live and online activity.”

Bulkington Parish Council was awarded £2,500 towards the replacement of play area equipment that no longer meets UK safety standards.

An application by Our Time Inter-generational Project Melksham, which requested £4,500, was rejected by councillors. 

The project proposed to connect elders and young people in Melksham, helping them to explore their experience of lockdown using theatre and movement. However, councillors felt the proposal to host workshops via Zoom – an online video communications platform – would not be an “effective” method of creating inter-generational relationships.