Melksham Rugby Club’s junior section have been awarded £12,000 funding by Melksham Town Council to purchase two mobile floodlight units, enabling more young people to participate in evening training and development programmes.
At Melksham’s full town council meeting on Monday 31st March, Cllr Jon Hubbard put forward a motion for the town council to give the juniors’ club £12,000 of solar farm funding – money that comes from housing developers for the council to use for community benefit.
The majority of councillors supported the motion after hearing a presentation by the youth club’s chairman, Jon Gerrish, and four junior players.
They said that currently, only one space at their training ground at Melksham Rugby Football Club, Oakfield, is lit for training, and with multiple teams and clubs vying for the same spaces, it often means the juniors are left without a lit space to train in the winter months during the evenings and midweek sessions.
Jon Gerrish said, “We really want to make Melksham Youth Rugby Club into a hub for all the kids that wouldn’t necessarily get the same opportunities elsewhere. We very much want to be welcoming and give these kids the support they need in a very inclusive environment.
“We have a limited space for midweek training during the winter months. With limited space to train and so many teams all vying for the same spaces, it does cause us a problem. With your support, it would help us to grow and improve the experience of our kids.”
He also said that any rugby funding locally goes to the under-18s elite clubs and players. He said, “We are reliant on working with the council so we can continue to grow and expand what we do for everybody.”
One of the junior players, Ethan, said, “We only have one training area with lights. This winter we missed loads of training sessions because one club has had to train on one pitch.”
Mobile floodlights will provide a flexible, long-term solution to this issue, ensuring that more young people can engage in rugby and benefit from the physical and social advantages it provides.
Whilst some councillors ‘wholeheartedly’ supported the motion and praised the work of the rugby club, others voted against it, saying that the motion should be submitted to the town council as a grant instead.
Cllr Jennie Westbrook said that whilst she thought the club did ‘amazing’ work, especially in encouraging girls to play rugby, she felt that this was not the right use of solar farm funding. “I just have a big issue with using solar farm money, and I think this is a grant, and if you came back in six months and asked in a grant application, I think it would be different.”
Cllr Adrienne Westbrook echoed this and said that she felt there could be a 50/50 split in funding between Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Council because the club at Oakfield Stadium falls in the Melksham Without boundary.
However, Cllr Hubbard said this request was ‘exceptional’ and fits ‘perfectly’ with what solar farm funding should be used for.
He said, “To an extent, yes, this is a grant. I can understand that. We have a role as councillors, our role is to be there in the community and to bring to this council issues that affect the community that we think this council can do something about. I have identified that we get this big pot of money every year to spend on the community. This fits it so perfectly; you couldn’t have written it. Surely the job to do is to try and make A and B work together and to bring to this council something that we think is exceptional. This is something I think is exceptional.”
Melksham’s mayor, Cllr Tom Price, agreed with Cllr Hubbard and said that asking the club to come back with a grant application to get funding for the lights was ‘red tape.’
He said, “There’s lots of reasons why we should be doing it. It isn’t just physical sport but the rugby club, they are a community, a family, they care for each other, they look after each other. It’s also a place where people meet and congregate as family and friends to talk about mental and physical wellbeing.”
He also said there needs to be flexibility to work with the public and community groups when they approach the council for support.
When it came to the vote, nine councillors voted in support of the motion, one against, and two abstained.
Below: the youngsters in action
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