Agenda item

1. Cabinet Member Stuart Wheeler and Lucy Murray-Brown, (Wiltshire Council) will be attending the area board to talk about the Review of Indoor Leisure Facilities being carried out by Wiltshire Council.

 

2. Car parking strategy – feedback from consultation, Chris Major, (Wiltshire Council).

 

3. Allocation of new grit bins - Abbi Gutierrez, (Community Area Manager).

 

a. Leisure review, Cllr Stuart Wheeler.

 

Stuart Wheeler, (Cabinet representative for Leisure, Sport and Culture) attended the area board to discuss the Review of Leisure Facilities being carried out by Wiltshire Council.

 

Points made by Cllr Wheeler included:

 

• Wiltshire Council could not continue to run all the Wiltshire leisure centres and sports facilities as it stood, savings needed to be made.

 

• Wiltshire Council were planning to provide this county with excellent leisure facilities over the next twenty five years.

 

• That it was proposed that the indoor bowling facility would re-locate from Christie Miller to Westbury.

 

• Indoor leisure facilities in Melksham are considered of strategic significance

 

• Proposed new indoor leisure facility within a community campus in the Melksham area to replace existing facilities at Christie Miller Sports Centre and Melksham Blue Pool

 

• Proposed facilities for the leisure aspect are high quality and include a 25m main pool, learner pool, sports hall, fitness suite, multi-activity rooms which will be delivered by the Workplace Transformation Team as part of a single campus

 

• Current indicative timeframe aims for completion in 2013

 

• Existing facilities would remain available for community use until new site opens

 

 

Points made from the floor included:

 

• That there would not be a replacement for the Christie Miller golf course.

 

• Christie Miller indoor bowlers do not want to lose indoor bowling facilities in Melksham and move to Westbury.

 

• The Indoor bowls club are a well supported and established club with a multi-age group membership.

 

• A move away from Melksham could mean that both young and old bowlers leave the sport.

 

 

Cllr Wheeler advised that he was actively looking at the Indoor bowls issue.

 

A short voting session on the review of leisure facilities in Wiltshire then took place with residents agreeing or disagreeing with statements about leisure services.

 

Cllr Wheeler then invited any questions on his portfolio, there were no questions raised.

 

 

The Chairman thanked Cllr Wheeler for his update and attending the meeting.

 

 

 

b. Car parking strategy – feedback from consultation.

 

Alan Creedy, (Head of Service - Sustainable Transport, Wiltshire Council) updated the meeting on the feed back of the results of the consultation on parking policy across the county.

 

Points made included:

 

• Move to one Council, lack of consistency between former districts.

 

• Parking is wider than just charging, important part of local transport policy (eg improving street scenes, reducing traffic conflicts and supporting bus services).

 

• Need to update strategy, changed picture since last review.

 

Melksham responses

 

•         Nine total respondents, seven comments made.

 

•         With 600 council employees transferring to Melksham, this is an ideal time to re-tune the system.

 

•         New developments in Melksham - Manor Park and Dauncey Gardens - have one bus a day, now is the time to run a half hourly bus.

 

•         Central car park, has a no right turn at the entrance. So traffic from the northern half of the town has to pass along the High Street, before turning in. This traffic causes jams and detracts from the town's attractiveness.

 

 

Points made from the floor included:

 

• Wiltshire Council would look at the costs of enforcing car parks on Sundays.

 

• That due to the traffic regulations single yellow line streets and roads were enforced on Sundays.

 

• The no right turn into the Central car park could not be removed as there is no room for an extra lane for the right turning vehicles, extra traffic controls would also cause further tail backs.

 

• The consultation response document was complicated to fill out which did not encourage people to complete it.

 

 

The Chairman thanked Alan Creedy for his update and attending the meeting.

 

 

 

c. Allocation of new grit bins.

Abbi Gutierrez, (Community area manager) advised that the Melksham community area had been allocated three additional grit bins, the working group had identified three sites where the bins should be situated, these were:

 

• Clock Tower View, Atworth.

 

• Hornbeam Crescent/Laburnum Drive junction, Melksham.

 

• Westhill, Whitley

 

 

Resolved:

 

That the Melksham Area Board agreed with the proposal for the above sitings the three grit bins in the Melksham community area.