Marlborough Town Hall was the scene for the last meeting of the Marlborough Area Board before May’s council elections. It had to decide on a long and final list of applications for grants to the tune of some £20,000 – with the threat that any unused funds would simply revert to Wiltshire Council’s bank account.
It did not go smoothly.
First up was Greatwood asking for £994 for new equipment to improve their work with special educational needs children. There was confusion about their reserves – under the Area Boards’ arcane rules if an organisation has too big a sum in its reserves, it may not qualify for a grant. This is a matter that needs some further investigation. However, Greatwood finally got their grant.
Marlborough Tennis Club was not so fortunate. There was confusion as to what counts as reserves and what counts as earmarked funds. So they will have to re-apply in May for money to buy lockers at St John’s so more young people from the villages can play tennis there.
There was unanimous agreement that the eighteen month-old Inside Out charity – which definitely has no reserves and no regular income either – should get its grant of £960 to fund learning excursions for local people with learning difficulties.
Kennet Community Transport got its £5,000 towards a deposit on a new community minibus which will cost between thirty and thirty-five thousand pounds. Transition Marlborough got £850 for a publicity drive, s series of lectures and training courses.
There was then a repeat for those who had not been at the previous night’s Town Council meeting or read Marlborough News Online, of the arguments about CCTV for the town. In the end the Chamber of Commerce agreed to defer its application for £5,000 towards a digital CCTV system for the High Street while the Town Council went to work on Councillor Fogg’s idea for a mobile CCTV system.
The Chamber told the meeting they would wait to see whether the town council scheme met the aspirations of chamber.
There was still a way to go through the grant pot. Next up was Kennet Valley Arts Trust’s request for £5,000 to launch a series of national and international opera, ballet and drama performances at the Town Hall – using satellite transmissions.
They’ll get half the sum as the Town Council is already installing a satellite dish for such performances. And it was suggested that they should come back to the Area Board next year for further funding for this project.
There was, however, considerable disquiet about the high cost of tickets to these events – although those costs are set by providers such as the Royal Opera House and the Royal National Theatre.
It was during the discussion of KVAT’s application that Councillor Fogg somewhat coyly announced that, after discussions with Wiltshire Council, there was ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ in the long promised provision of a permanent cinema for Marlborough. Watch this space to find out how long the tunnel will be.
Finally we came to a ‘Councillor Initiative’ – Councillor Fogg’s scheme to bring electricity points to the High Street. As we have reported, this scheme is primarily to avoid pollution from the Mop Fair generators – and was originally suggested by the Chamber of Commerce. But it would have other benefits though how these would be organised and charged for was not clear.
Councillor Fogg was asking for £12,000. There was no clarity as to how the scheme was to be run. There was a not very helpful spat between two Marlborough Town Councillors on why the scheme had not been put to the town council earlier. And, if the application was successful, it was not clear what name would be on the cheque.
Councillor Jemima Milton asked why the Showman’s Guild – who run the Mop Fairs – were not contributing to the costs. There was also a feeling that some businesses would benefit financially from the scheme and ought also to contribute towards the capital costs.
With rather more heat than light being raised by this electrification scheme, it was finally decided to ‘ring fence’ the money and hold it over for a final decision in May. This might not be the best outcome as some of the construction work for the scheme would have to be done while the High Street is being re-surfaced this summer.
This was after all the last meeting before the elections.
And for the record five parish councils and Marlborough Town Council were represented at the meeting.
See also:
Marlborough’s new town clerk to take charge of deployable CCTV camera project – as from Monday
Electrifying the High Street – a new scheme would make Marlborough a pioneer
