THE town hall could become licensed to host weddings and civil partnerships again, which was discussed by Melksham town councillors recently.
The idea was put forward the council’s operations manager, who received one enquiry about this, sparking the discussion.
The cost to purchase a licence was confirmed in the meeting as being £1,900 for three years, purchased from Wiltshire Council.
Some councillors were positive about the town hall being available to the public in this way, however it was highlighted that the council has done this before, but it was underused and costly.
Supporting the idea, cllr Saffi Rabey said, “I have said for a long time that I think this room would make a fantastic wedding venue and I would like to see it used in this way.”
The town hall was a licensed wedding venue around ten years ago, but councillors took the decision not to renew the licence.
Cllr Jon Hubbard said, “I have no objection. I remember when we voted to not renew the licence and that was when the licence for a venue went from about £100 a year to the £1,100 a year that it is now. I believe it was still when John Crook was town clerk, so it is going back a while, but he reported to us that we hadn’t covered the costs of the licence we were paying for then, with the number of weddings that we had here. Therefore, the council chose not to renew it because certainly then people were getting married in adjoining facilities in the area but coming to the Assembly Hall for reception, and there wasn’t a direct connection between having the wedding in here and in the Assembly Hall. I am not anti us doing this, but the track record of when we did this before was that it didn’t pay.”
Raising the point that the public have not expressed an interest in the town council focusing on this, cllr Graham Ellis said, “I took a good look at this because I didn’t know really how many folks out there would be interested in this. I have been doing a survey over the last couple of days looking at what’s important and what people want us to take action on. I listed 60 things there that the council does and I had 60 responses, I am sorry to say that setting ourselves up as a wedding venue so far has come at the bottom.”
However, supporting the plans on the basis that there would be no risk to the town council’s resources and funds, cllr Graham Ellis said, “It is going to be break even or near break-even, if we have the staff resources to do it and see it through and there’s no risk of it being a ‘white elephant’ then by all means do so, but it’s not going to be something that will get us a lot of votes in 2025 I suspect.”
In order for the venue to be approved, the town clerk said that logistics will need to be reviewed. Linda Roberts said, “I have been involved with getting licences for premises for weddings but not where the officers work in the same building. There has to be a separate room where the registrar meets the couple prior to the wedding and that can’t be in the ceremony room. Food and drink cannot be served, I am not sure if that’s changed. Obviously, staff will know there’s a wedding, so we will stay downstairs to make sure we don’t disturb them. There’s a lot we need to get in place to make sure we’re approved.”
In the next phase of the proposal the town council’s operations manager Hugh Davies, will explore costs further and build a business case for the idea to be discussed at a future meeting.
