Melksham Without Christmas message from councillor John Glover, chair of Melksham Without Parish Council

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as we complete another year.

I trust that you will be able to have a joyful celebration with your friends and relations, unlike the previous years under Covid restrictions, and are looking forward to the New Year. The parish council have moved to their new home in the Campus and are very much enjoying the new modern facilities.

The central location in town is certainly allowing much easier access to the public and we are pleased to see more residents drop in with enquiries to the office. Meetings are held at the dedicated parish council space in the Campus too, and we are pleased to have a permanent home at last.

Our thanks go to Gompels in Bowerhill who allowed their facilities to be used for a couple of years for meetings, as a community benefit, and latterly to Melksham Rugby Club who also accommodated the parish council meetings this year.

We have retained the use of Zoom to enable the public to access our meetings and take part in the public forum, should they not wish to attend in person; and the meetings can be watched back in the following days by searching Melksham Without Parish Council on YouTube.

A major project this year has been the building of the new village hall in the Bowood View development off Semington Road in Berryfield, with them starting on site the first working day after Christmas. It was fitting that the Melksham Area Board was held there last week to showcase the new community facilities.

The building will be leased to a management committee that has now been agreed and once they have formed as a charity trust the formal lease can be legally be put in place and the hall will be available for booking by residents and local community groups and organisations. The project cost is in the region of £875k, and this has been funded by contributions from the local housing developments in the parish, with the majority coming from Bellway Homes.

The parish council took out a public works loan for £495k to ease the cashflow, which they are paying back over five years, and enabled the hall to be built before the majority of the funding was received. The last thing the parish council wanted to do was to arrive on site and dig up the road again, once the diggers had left the site.

The Neighbourhood Plan has been proving its worth by shaping development coming forward in planning applications and being used to prevent those that are speculative, and not plan led. The review started almost immediately to ensure that the Neighbourhood Plan is a living document, that is up to date and current, and you will see the results of the revised and additional policies in a new draft plan that the steering group will be seeking your views on in the New Year.

This will help us ensure that all proposed developments are appropriate for the Melksham area. Looking to the future, your council will continue to put the needs and requirements of the parish to the fore when assessing developments of any nature. If you are interested in getting involved with your local community then there is an opportunity to join Melksham Without Parish Council with a vacancy following the resignation of councillor Mary Pile.

There is a vacancy in the Beanacre, Shaw, Whitley and Beanacre Ward, that will be filled by co-option in January; please contact the clerk for more information, the deadline for expressions of interest is Sunday 15th January.

All the parish councillors express their thanks to cllr Pile for her six years on the parish council and many years serving on other councils in the past.

Once again, I wish all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.