WILTSHIRE Council has voted against the proposed amalgamation of Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Council.
At the meeting, members of Wiltshire Council backed the working group’s recommendation that there should be no change to the structure of Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without and the final decision was made not to merge the councils.
There will be some changes to the boundaries however, as 700 homes to the east of Melksham including Snarlton Lane will be transferred to Melksham Town in the new year.
Chair of Melksham Without Parish Council, Richard Wood said, “We are absolutely delighted that the councils will not be merging. We put forward a strong case and truly believe it’s for the good of the villages, so yes we are very pleased.
“We weren’t trying to be difficult and we have allowed 700 houses to be moved from Melksham Without to Melksham Town, which is quite a significant number.
“We fought to protect the individual characteristics that Melksham Without has and the savings wouldn’t have been significant enough to warrant the risk of the communities losing their strong identities.”
Cllr Jon Hubbard said, “I am very disappointed with the outcome and feel quite strongly that Wiltshire Council has made the wrong decision.
“I believe people have been scared at the concept of change and now we are stuck with a low-level running council and the town will forever be limited by what it could potentially do; people have been very shortsighted.
“We are now in the ridiculous situation of having two councils which essentially serve the same people, which doesn’t make any sense.
“Wiltshire Council has made the decision to stick with an out of date and absurd system which doesn’t benefit the town.
“What is notable and appalling is that not one single representative for Melksham Town Council came to the meeting. Both councils were given the opportunity to speak before hand to give one final statement and Melksham Without had four speakers and Melksham Town had zero representatives to put the case across one last time, which was very disappointing.”
