Faced with a huge surge in population over the next ten years, volunteers working to prepare the Melksham Neighbourhood Plan is giving local people another chance to have their say about the future of the town and its surrounding villages.
They plan to host another series of Open House events to ask local residents, groups, and businesses what they think about the growth of our local community and what services should be provided.
The first Open House event will be held in Melksham, Town Hall on 1st and 2nd July. Other events will be held in Bowerhill and Shaw shortly afterwards.
Spokesman, Nick Westbrook, said, “ More houses put even more pressure on local services. We want to know what local people think so we are giving plenty of notice before the Open House events so that residents of all ages can find out what is going on.”
Government has changed the rules to ensure that more houses are built each year. Evidence shows that raising protest petitions when large scale development planning applications are submitted for approval is probably too late to influence decision making.
The only way to give residents more control over what developers can build is for a local community to prepare a statutory document called a Neighbourhood Plan, which tells developers where and what they can build.
With over 2,000 new houses under construction or included in Melksham area planning applications in the pipeline for approval by Wiltshire Council, there is growing concern about the capacity of local public services to cope with another huge surge in population over the coming years.
Volunteers have been working for the past years with the support of the Town and Parish Councils to prepare a Melksham Neighbourhood Plan. Two recent reports to their Steering Group have assessed the suitability 47 sites identified by Wiltshire Council for possible new housing development and eight options that might be used for care, community, health and leisure purposes.
More information is available from the website www.melkshamneighbourhoodplan.org ”
![Melksham Times Past
A column about days gone by in Melksham by local historian Lisa Ellis
The Independent Chapel and Women’s Rights in the 1840s
A document I recently transcribed lists the baptisms performed at the Independent Chapel. This record is especially helpful in that, along with baptisms, a lot of them include birth dates - one of the ways I discover which day someone was born.
The following is taken from a Wiltshire Times article published on 9th November 1878 which reports a speech given during the 100-year services and to celebrate their renovations (what we now know to be the Rachel Fowler Centre).
One speaker, Rev. T. Mann, minister in Trowbridge, talked about the Chapel’s origins when he related how Rev. Honywill came to Melksham and how he’d gone on to remain as the minister for the Independent Chapel for almost 60 years. [Honywill and his family lived on King Street in what we now call “Legion House”.]
Read more on our website, the link is in our bio.](https://scontent-lhr6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.75761-15/505444438_18038424887647822_3264519508333556874_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_e35_tt6&_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=18de74&_nc_ohc=gXZQJoHTNiEQ7kNvwHezuPI&_nc_oc=AdlrJvMDapuork_EjycPOcegNeMnCA37GEIudkxkTeCfTgvB5iijE05ojpwlYCd5gN8&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr6-1.cdninstagram.com&edm=ANo9K5cEAAAA&_nc_gid=2ejTZ6D9dPXIFkdtQ-bGfg&oh=00_AfMePUYDK6PXDzeUYs-aKY4wfMPOaURY8Z6OwO7o8TXJSA&oe=685718CA "Melksham Times Past
A column about days gone by in Melksham by local historian Lisa Ellis
The Independent Chapel and Women’s Rights in the 1840s
A document I recently transcribed lists the baptisms performed at the Independent Chapel. This record is especially helpful in that, along with baptisms, a lot of them include birth dates - one of the ways I discover which day someone was born.
The following is taken from a Wiltshire Times article published on 9th November 1878 which reports a speech given during the 100-year services and to celebrate their renovations (what we now know to be the Rachel Fowler Centre).
One speaker, Rev. T. Mann, minister in Trowbridge, talked about the Chapel’s origins when he related how Rev. Honywill came to Melksham and how he’d gone on to remain as the minister for the Independent Chapel for almost 60 years. [Honywill and his family lived on King Street in what we now call “Legion House”.]
Read more on our website, the link is in our bio.")
