Two projects
took centre stage last week, the Melksham Link and Studley Grange. On Wednesday
the consultants MRG gave an interesting presentation to some of the Melksham
Link stakeholders at Wiltshire Council offices at Monkton Park. They showed
more detail of the plans for the enabling development for the new canal and then
Jock MacKenzie and his team gave us some details of the supporting business
plan. Such a myriad of ideas here – waterside housing development, a large new
wetlands reserve, a primary school, a marina, a pub, camping, lodges, rare
breeds, Melksham through the ages, visitor centres. A pre-planning application
for the whole scheme has been submitted to Wiltshire Council and is currently out
for consultation. This should give us some guidance as to the scope of what is
required for the planning application itself.
The appeal
for £25,000 matched funding for Studley Grange is going well and we have passed
the £4000 mark. Interestingly, a lot of donors are using the BT Donate online
facility or text giving through JustTextGiving. Both are very easy and quick
and gift aid can be applied with the donation if appropriate. Please help if
you can – every pound donated will be matched by one of our funders. For
details see: http://bit.ly/1w23LrJ. Excavation of the
old line of the canal here at Studley will open up such a peaceful stretch of
waterway for public access 24/7 and is close to the centres of Royal Wootton
Bassett and Swindon.
The quarterly
meeting of the Wiltshire, Swindon and Oxfordshire Canal Partnership took place
at Monkton Park on Wednesday. This was a
chance to update our partners with the latest developments on all the current
projects. We were also able to confirm to the partners that an entry for Canal
& River Trust’s Living Waterway Awards has been made by the Trust. One of our volunteers, Val Melville from
Chippenham, who headed up the team that organised the Heritage Open days at
Pewsham last summer drafted the entry which relates to those events and it is
entered under the Education category.
Jock Mackenzie did a quick presentation to the partners on the Melksham
plans. and answered questions on the proposal. The plans can be seen on the Partnership web site http://bit.ly/19ryvJb Next time we will be on site at
Royal Wootton Bassett to give the partners an idea of actual progress on the
ground.
As an aside,
I see that Timothy West and Prunella Scales have filmed another series of canal
journeys and tonight’s (Sunday) programme is about the Oxford Canal. They are such brilliant ambassadors for our
canals and make really interesting films. Hope you can catch it later if you
miss it. Some time ago Timothy West did a voice-over for a Wilts & Berks
video and when I met him in Devizes about 18 months ago he asked how our
project was going, so we are not forgotten!
Kath Hatton 
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