PLEASE allow me some space in your newspaper to highlight a development regarding Melksham’s Health And Wellbeing centre (the campus project).

At the July 11 Wiltshire Council meeting I made a statement lamenting the lack of current information and requesting an update on the state of this project to which the responsible cabinet officer replied.

Both my statement and the reply are part of the public record but suffice to say that this is the first time in many months that project information has been available to the citizens of Melksham.

In view of this I have moved from very pessimistic to cautiously optimistic, noting that the statement by Cllr Thompson is just the beginning of a new information stream.

Of course I would have preferred some concrete answers such as ‘when we can expect to see the first phase of the project to open to the public’ and ‘how much money is left in project pot’ or ‘when/will a project liaison committee be re-instituted to ensure stakeholder involvement in and oversight of the project?’ However, I do not want to join in the current blame game whereby certain individuals have made a career of tossing the blame for delays etc from one entity to another.

I strongly believe in a collegiate approach in dealing with Wiltshire Council; an inclusive partnership that promotes understanding of the material and financial restrictions facing the project and fostering mutual respect between all parties. This approach best guarantees that the interests of Melksham community, who are after all the main stakeholders of the project, do not get trampled beneath the feet of town and county councils in the current acrimonious pass-the-buck atmosphere.

I think that Wiltshire Council is agreeable to pressing the relationship reset button as shown by their willingness to publicly answer my statement and their promise of a full, detailed and transparent report in September this year and updates thereafter at Area Board meetings.

It is important to note that the Area Board has failed to provide these updates but we now have a new chairman of our Area Board who has promised to ensure updates are made available.

Our local councillors have stated on many occasions that Wiltshire Council will not provide answers. This attitude is, in my opinion, less than helpful and they should have made stringent efforts to obtain the information required by our citizens, especially in light of the fact that some Melksham town councillors are also elected members of Wiltshire Council.

It’s time for attitudinal change, time for collaboration and direct communication with Wiltshire Council which holds the project purse strings.

This can only be done through the auspices of a liaison committee and commitment by all concerned to stop the blame game and start the team game.

My statement and Cllr Thompson’s response can be seen at https://wiltshire.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/295397 Martin Pain

Councillor

Melksham Town Council