Wiltshire Council agrees to nearly £3m in extra funding for Melksham House, By local democracy reporter Matthew McLaughlin

WILTSHIRE Council’s cabinet has agreed to an extra £2.8m to help Melksham House’s refurbishment project.

Wiltshire Council’s cabinet agreed this week to the extra funding in addition to the £2m already set aside for the project.

Cabinet member for strategic assets and asset transfer, Phil Alford said this will help bring the listed building back into use and make it zero-carbon.

It is proposed that the funds are used to create what the local authority is calling a “flexible co-working accommodation and a multi-purpose space for the community”, all the while keeping the building’s heritage.

Leader of the council, Richard Clewer expressed his frustration over the mounting costs of the scheme which is needed to progress the Community Campus.

“This project needs completing and it needs completing without becoming any more of a money drain,” he said.

Cllr Clewer said he is acutely aware of concerns from some councillors over the amount of money going into the Melksham Community Campus.

This decision was made as the council was unsuccessful in its £14m bid for cash from the government’s Levelling Up Fund. In June, it applied for the funding to support two projects; £5m of which would go towards the refurbishment of Melksham House.

Cllr Gordon King asked if the project was affordable in respect to the potentially stressed budget of 2022/23 and if the proposed funding will take funding from another cabinet project.

Cllr Alford said the money was already earmarked in the capital purse but the cabinet was being asked to release the funding.

Melksham mayor, Jon Hubbard said the council was a victim of its own actions. “The original designs for the campus, on the original budget for the campus; included Melksham House as part of the campus,” he said.

“The situation we find ourselves in now is only because the budget was re-imagined and elements which weren’t originally part of the budget became part of the budget, and therefore there was £8m less to spend on the development than was originally planned some eight years ago.”

Cllr Hubbard said the cold reality of the situation was that if Melksham House is not refurbished then the Melksham Community Campus could not open.

He said that while it would not be popular for a local member to say, that the council would need to look at disposing most of the assets in the town.

The risk, Cllr Hubbard said, was that the community could believe there would be a whole raft of additional facilities which the council does not have the money to pay for.

He urged the cabinet to be open and honest now about its plans for the town; as it has previously said, sites such as the library and Blue Pool will not be needed once Melksham Community Campus opens its doors. Cllr Clewer said he would prefer to generate income from the sites, rather than sell them off.

The proposed Place Board would look at how the town could use its assets in a more strategic way. Cabinet unanimously agreed to releasing the £2.8m funding for the planned works.