Marlborough has missed the boat. There is, the area board was told on Tuesday (March 24), no money left for any kind of ‘campus’ or ‘hub’ project in Marlborough.
Wiltshire Council has spent £74,068,000 on campuses elsewhere in the county – an over spend of £2,780,000. Only the campus in Corsham is – partially – open. Plans for Pewsey’s campus have been agreed. Melksham’s scheme got planning permission last May. Work began on Tisbury’s campus in January.
In January, however, Devizes were told by Trowbridge that their plans would not be part of ‘the second phase of hubs’.
The campus concept brings all leisure and other services provided by the Council and many of its partners – perhaps ‘community youth services, NHS and police – onto one new site. Hubs are a smaller version of the campus.
Allison Bucknell, Conservative councillor for Lyneham, wrote that the policy “…is a nationally acclaimed concept being pioneered by the Conservative administration in County Hall…The Campus project is a critical component of the Conservative Council’s investment in Wiltshire.”
As it happens George Hayles, chairman of the Marlborough Area Community Operations Board (COB), told the area board meeting that his team, who had done a lot of work since last March, did not think the campus idea suited Marlborough.
However, he wanted to know whether they should go ahead with a smaller or ‘hub’ project. It seems it would have to be ‘self-funded’. There was not even money for a feasibility study.
Mr Hayles said his COB members are “…enthusiastic because we think many in Marlborough would have their lives greatly enhanced by such a facility. We understand that this whole project is a partnership with Wiltshire Council and the community has its part to play in this effort to ‘deliver inclusive communities and more accessible services’.”
But he thought it was “Not very realistic to work ourselves up into a lather unless we had a clear view of what we could deliver.”
Mr Hayles had been making ‘strenuous efforts’ for several months to get any response at all from Wiltshire Council officer Laurie Bell (Associate Director for Communities and Communications) who is running the campus policy. Area Board chair Jemima Milton wanted that minuted.
Councillor Milton said she would ask Ms Bell and Council Leader Jane Scott to come to the next Marlborough Area Board meeting and explain what was going on. Councillor Milton said: “The Council pushed us to do all this work for nothing – it’s mighty unfair. It’s unfair that money has been spent on others.”
Councillor Dobson did not think that Marlborough lent itself to a campus, but favoured a ‘hub’. And Councillor Sheppard said that it was another case of “The Marlborough area being forgotten by Trowbridge.”
What has Corsham campus – the only one open – got? Three floodlit artificial turf pitches with changing rooms – a squash court – a sports hall (for badminton, five-a-side football and basketball.) And coming on stream: a swimming pool with health suite of sauna, steam room and jacuzzi, a fully equipped gym and outside tennis courts. As well as a café and meeting rooms and so on.
At the end of the Area Board meeting the Green Party’s candidate for the Devizes Constituency, Dr Emma Dawnay, tried to ask a question. She was not allowed to do so and there were mutterings of ‘we don’t politics here’.
But could it be that politics are involved here? Corsham, after all, is in the Chippenham constituency – a seat the Conservatives are keen to win from the LibDems in the May election.
Or could it be that Marlborough’s councillors simply took their eye off the ball? Either way, as someone said as the meeting closed: “Another case of moribund Marlborough”.