Agenda item

The Chairman will give any updates, including:

·       Highways Matters Event – 25 January 2024

·       Maltings Recap

·       Salisbury Traffic Management

Chairman’s Updates

Highways Matters Event

The Area Board would host a Highways themed event on 25 January 2024. Any questions for the Highways team should be submitted prior to the event.

Salisbury Maltings Regeneration Project

The regeneration of the Central Car Park and Maltings had been a long-standing aspiration of Wiltshire Council and its predecessor authorities.

The area comprises the Central Car Park and the Maltings shopping centre.  The freehold of both were held by Wiltshire Council, and the shopping centre was held on a long lease by a private company.

Masterplans had been adopted for both the Maltings and the wider River Park which set out aspirations for regeneration that aligned with planning policy for the area and the Salisbury Central Area Framework.

The council had sought to work with the successive owners of the shopping centre to achieve its comprehensive regeneration goals and had also attempted on two occasions to purchase the shopping centre when it had come on the market. The council’s offers were informed by independent commercial advice but on each occasion the council was outbid.

The central car park itself was constructed on land that had been raised historically with material that contains significant pockets of contamination.  Discussions with one developer partner confirmed the abnormal costs to deal with this ran to an estimated £10m at that time – of which the Council was able to secure £6m of grant funding towards the cost from the government via the Local Enterprise Partnership.   Despite this and owing to other factors including market headwinds and the nerve agent incident of 2018 difficulties had persisted in bringing forward a workable regeneration scheme.  

The £6m grant funding secured via the LEP was time limited but the council was able to divert this funding into the Maltings element of the River Park scheme that was currently in delivery with the Environment Agency (EA).  This match funding supported the EA in delivering a scheme that would secure significant regeneration benefits alongside the flood alleviation aspects that were the focus of the EA in line with its statutory obligations.  The current scheme had unlocked a total of £38m of investment into Salisbury.

The Council remained in dialogue with the current owners of the shopping centre on its plans for the site.  The aspirations for a comprehensive scheme remained, but site constraints continued to be a factor.   

Central Car Park

Thanks to public who had made contact with local members on the situation around central car park and the Maltings. It was recognised that some improvements could be made to the traffic flow, and suggestions had been fed into the relevant Officers. Congestion was not aided however by some drivers who were driving inconsiderately. We are trying to work with Highways to make things flow as best they can.

City Hall

Anne Trevett was part of a group of local people who had come together to work towards finding a solution to the future used of City Hall as an entertainment facility.

The Salisbury Friends of City Hall Group had attended a marketing exercise event at City Hall as part of a procurement process which was running until Thursday 30 November 2023.

The view of the group was that at this stage they would not put forward a bid to try and operate City Hall as it was not in a position to do so, however there was a great deal of expertise held among the group members, which included international experience of operating entertainment business. The group would remain involved and available to offer advice. Should things change, the group would be standing by and ready to consider its position.

The Chairman thanked Anne and the other members of the group and invited Anne to come back to provide future updates to the Board as the process moved forward.