Marlborough Town Hall opens its doors to the public at 10am on Saturday for the public to have a chance to see what has happened to – and debate – the future of the 15-acre water meadow site at Stonebridge Meadow.
The public consultation exercise is the second since the Town Council and Action for the River Kennet (ARK) joined forces almost four years ago to buy the site and develop it mainly as a river, wildlife and leisure habitat.
Residents will be able to see what has happened since then – ARK has raised more than £20,000 in grants to pay for the programme while still bidding for more – and complete an eight-part questionnaire.
And the contentious question that is being raised is whether a significant part of the scrubland should be drained and turned into a youth football pitch by Marlborough Town Football Club.
Overwhelming public support for the project would overturn the agreed management plan for Stonebridge Meadow drawn up following an earlier consultation exercise on which the joint management plan was agreed.
This stated that residents “did not want to see the meadow used for housing development, market gardening or sports pitches” and the plan does not include these elements.
But consideration of the “major deviation” of football has now been raised by Marlborough’s current and past mayors, Councillors Marian Hannaford-Dobson and Councillor Guy Loosmore – following an approach by the Town football club.
The club has reported that “there would be unlimited funding” for the project from the Football Association.
However, Mark Young, football development manager for Wiltshire County FA, told Marlborough News Online: “We did have a meeting with Marlborough Town FC, in which they shared a vision to develop some land next to their existing pitch.
“They are someway off being ready for to apply for grant aid though. The project does not have any costings, business model or sustainability outcomes attached to it at the moment. All are essential to any investment.”
He added: “The FA do not have unlimited funds to help projects like this. Our funding partner the Football Foundation are a charity and have limited funds to invest into grassroots projects.”
“We welcome the consultation,” Charlotte Hitchmough, director of ARK, told Marlborough News Online. “We are delighted that so many people are using and enjoying the meadow. It is a great asset for the people of Marlborough.”
And she pointed out: “When we bought Stonebridge the agreed objectives were of managing it as a chalk stream environment. We said we would consider the provision of allotments and the possibility of a football pitch, and allotments have been provided.
“More than 95 per cent of the people consulted said they didn’t want any form or organised sport on the mead. So we didn’t pursue it any further as the public consultation gave us the answer.”
Claims have since been made that the original consultation wasn’t extensive enough and not representative of the views of all Marlborough’s residents despite all the roads around the meadow being posted with information, and four days spent seeking the views of people passing through the meadow from 8am to 6pm.
So another “Discovering Stonebridge” consultation is taking place from 10am to 1pm on Saturday at which details of ARK’s continuous work and forthcoming summer events at Stonebridge will be available.
“They include competitions and courses for people to take part in, art days too,” added Charlotte “And we shall have on display our new EM River model, a giant sand tray and fun thing that people can play with.”
The consultation will also provide information on the Coopers Meadow rehabilitation, which ARK carried out for the Town Council in 2008 when ARK received £23,000 out of funding provided by the old Kennet District Council towards a river improvement scheme.
ARK raised a total of £60,000 to pay for the project, which, in 2009, won a top Association of Rivers Trust award worth £2,000.
“The success of the project is down to the joint efforts of everyone in the Marlborough Rivers Partnership and all the people who gave their time and energy to help,” Charlotte declared at the presentation.
