Funding for two vital projects is still yet to be found by Marlborough town council, which last month set its new £406,000 budget for the coming year, due to add an average 19 pence a month to its precept.
One is the £26,000 cost of the flood protection scheme for Kennet Place, in which the town council is jointly involved with the Environment Agency and Wiltshire Council, and may require Public Works Loan Board support.
The other is the introduction of CCTV in Marlborough High Street, the only major shopping centre in the county that is unprotected, which the police have reported was hit in the run up to Christmas by outside gangs of shoplifters.
A proposal to include an initial £10,000 in the budget was rejected at last month’s full council meeting because of a lack of information. But two detailed reports are now due to be submitted to the council’s Finance and Policy Committee.
One is from Councillor Marion Hannaford-Dobson, who chairs a sub-committee investigating the introduction of CCTV, and the other is from Councillor Richard Pitts, who has been liaising with Marlborough Chamber of Commerce on the project.
“We need to be aware of where we are,” chairman Councillor Andrew Ross, told finance committee members on Monday. “We have no plans and no decisions have yet been taken.”
The committee has already decided to take £5,000 from unspent funding this year to cover the cost of tourism leaflets, and has time to consider how to pay its share of the flood prevention scheme.
“There is no documentation for a CCTV scheme, so we can’t set a budget for it,” Councillor Nick Fogg pointed out. “There are widely varying requirements according to what system we decide to have.”
It remains possible that an initial four or six camera scheme for CCTV could be paid for out of the council’s substantial reserves and might also attract grants from elsewhere.