Community projects bag £10,000 at Marlborough Area Board

Six community projects are more than £10,000 better off after applying to Marlborough’s Area Board for grants last night.

Among the winners were Marlborough Area Development Trust – and, by implication, everyone with a smartphone – who successfully bid for £2,500 to instal a further eight nodes along Marlborough High Street as part of the community wi-fi programme.

The programme means that anyone with a smartphone or web-enabled laptop or tablet can enjoy free internet access throughout the town centre.

Inn addition, the grant will fund eight nodes in parishes including Aldbourne, Avebury and Ramsbury, following a successful rural pilot project at Aldbourne Post Office.

Marlborough’s new Ladies’ Rounders Club were awarded £500 towards equipment and facility hire, while the town’s Boxing Club bagged £5,000 to kit out the new gym and sparring ring at its Elcott Lane premises.

Natural Access were awarded £1,500 towards a new online tool that will allow local, regional and national countryside, environmental and heritage groups to collaborate and share information, and to provide easier access for the public to these groups.

Innov8  for all received £500 to buy sports equipment for after-school clubs across the community area, while Broad Hinton Village Hall got £350 towards the maintenance of its wooden floor.