Is Marlborough getting like Las Vegas or Bollywood?

A full meeting of Marlborough Town Council was told on Monday (March 9) that the town was ‘beginning to look like Las Vegas’.  Councillor Noel Barrett-Morton called the signage on the outside of Bollywood the new Indian restaurant behind the Town Hall “outrageous”.

No planning application had been made before the signs went up.  Councillor Castle reassured the meeting that on the day they were unveiled he had asked the Town Clerk to alert Wiltshire Council’s ‘enforcement officer’.

Another councillor suggested the signage, which can be seen in direct relationship with St Mary’s iconic tower, was more fitting for Bollywood.  Councillors were left to await some action being taken by Wiltshire Council.

However, another case of the town’s signage has been resolved – and in the process raised basic questions about the fragility of the much-trumpeted localism.

Marlborough Town Council’s planning committee rejected a planning application for a new timber fascia board and hanging sign for the Cancer Research UK charity shop next to the entrance to Hughenden Yard.  

They voted four to three against consent (with two abstentions) on the grounds that the signage was ‘not in keeping with the conservation area’.  Their decision had less to do with aesthetics than with their stated opposition to the arrival of another charity shop on the High Street.   

Wiltshire Council planning officers gave the Town Council’s views short shrift and gave planning permission – and the shop is now open in the charity’s colours and with its logos.  

The planning officers’ sole reason for granting planning consent came from the coalition government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – the catch-all paragraph 187: “Wiltshire Council has worked proactively to secure this development to improve the economic, social and environmental conditions of the area.”

In other words, any economic activity is better than no economic activity.  And as prostitution and illegal drugs are now considered when working out the nation’s economic wellbeing, the gross domestic product (GDP), we can expect some diversification among the High Street’s premises.

Certainly, town councillors will soon get used to the fact that if Wiltshire Council officers want to grant planning permission, the NPPF will provide them with generous encouragement.