THE town council is exploring ways to become ‘more ambitious’ with community events and will look at the possibility of running different, regular community events throughout the year.
At the council’s community development committee meeting last month, cllr Jennie Westbrook said the council should look to provide other events throughout the first part of the year, starting next year, outside of the annual events such as the Christmas lights switch-on and Remembrance Parade.
There’s lots of things we can look at doing,” said cllr Westbrook. “I appreciate it is easier to run community events as we move further into the better weather. Actually, we’ve got three months that aren’t great at the start of the year that I think we have missed the boat on a bit, but we can think about it and know that next year, we need to come up with some really great community events. They can be things that take place in the Assembly Hall because it’s inside and warm. We have got an amazing park and I think during the summer we could make more of that park.”
Cllr Westbrook suggested the town council should start to explore ways of drawing people in to the town. She said, “I think we’re being a bit short-sighted in sticking to the events we know and that’s fine, they are not bad events and they are run very well, but I think we need to be ambitious and really start putting Melksham on the map, rather than just twice a year; every month there’s something fantastic going on here.”
Organising events that have a free element was something councillors were in favour of. Cllr Pat Aves said, “It doesn’t have to cost a fortune. We used to do Harvest Festival when we were kids, that was a great thing and everyone brought produce. Now we could do a larder event.”
Chair of the meeting cllr Saffi Rabey said this was an opportunity to use resources in the town. She said, “This is where we need to be using those people who have that knowledge and ability and get involved.”
It was agreed by councillors to task the events working group with formulating plans for new events, which could begin in 2025. Cllr Rabey felt that all councillors should consider the matter, with a view to feeding ideas through to the events working group.
