Councillors to look at securing town park from risk of travellers

MELKSHAM Town Council has voted to explore options to secure King George V playing field to prevent future misuse of the land following the incident last month when travellers set up camp.

The arrival of travellers in the playing field over the August bank holiday weekend, forced the town council to move the location of their children’s summer activities day to the Canberra Centre, and also sparked fears that the Melksham Food & River Festival would be impacted.

The travellers vacated the land five days after their arrival, on the morning of Wednesday 5th September, after Wiltshire Council served the group with a court order.

At last week’s full town council meeting, cllr Hayley Spencer-Illman said, “This is the second time in recent years that this has happened at King George V playing field. Although  there is a significant amount of time between the two incidents, we do need to look at protecting our land for the interest of our local community. 

“It is a sensitive subject, it caused a lot of debate and discussion on social media and I’m sure councillors read those comments with interest. However I do feel that we need to protect the land – especially as we are taking on the asset as well. There are many options, many access points, so we do need to look at doing an audit of the area and we do need to look at ways that we can ensure that anything that happens on that land is with our approval and only that.”

Questions were raised at the meeting about why the town council were exploring options to secure the land, when it is still Wiltshire Council’s responsibility to maintain the area. However, it was highlighted that the town council is soon to take ownership of the land via an asset transfer, and has an acknowledgement from Wiltshire Council to manage and maintain the area.

“The reality is that Wiltshire Council is not going to invest in any of these  facilities,” said deputy mayor, cllr Jon Hubbard,  “And that is why we have invested in play areas and why we don’t have any closed play areas, whilst many towns do. That is why we are putting in a splash pad and other improvements.

“We have a choice – we can invest in our facilities whether we own them or not and deliver for our residents. Or we can sit on our hands and say that we are not going to do anything until we own it – which some towns are doing. But if we sit on our hands, all that is going to happen is that our residents will go without. And when we finally get them, we’ll have to pick up a bigger bill to play catch up.”