AMBITIOUS plans for Melksham’s Community Campus will have to scaled back to fit within the council’s budget, it was revealed this week.

Wiltshire Council is investing nearly £80 million into improving facilities and services across the county and Melksham is set to be the biggest campus out of all the towns with a budget of just over £15m. Work is expected to begin later this year on building the campus at Melksham House, off the Market Place, and it is hoped to be ready by the end of 2017.

However, Coun John Thomson, who took over as Cabinet member for campuses in March, said this week he had reviewed the plans and some elements were too ambitious to fit in with the budget.

He said: “The plans at the moment are fantastic with a superb looking building, but it’s probably the most expensive building you could possible build and do we want a fantastic building or do we want to keep as many as the facilities people want in the building? I think that’s a fairly positive and honest approach.

“I have confirmed to everyone the budget is the same but they are going to have to build what they want within the budget.”

He said the situation came to light when tenders for the construction of the building showed the project was going to be over budget. 

Coun Thomson is working with the Melksham Shadow Community Operations Board to prioritise what facilities are most important such as the swimming pool, gym and tennis courts.

He added: “It’s very much going to be led by the community, not by me, I want them to make the decisions about how they want to spend the money. They’ve got basically £15.1m to spend on the site in the town, which is a huge amount of money.

“We are still having to make tough decisions but we are still delivering something, whereas with a lot of councils it’s ‘no’ all the time. We get a rough-ride sometimes I think, but in Wiltshire we are doing quite well.”