Melksham Community Campus

Melksham Community Campus - October 2020 update

With the start of construction of Melksham Community Campus just a few months away, plans are being finalised to manage the disruption this will cause as carefully as possible.

The campus will offer a host of top-class facilities under one roof, including a gym, pool, sports hall, a library, café, and meeting space for the community.

It is being proposed to bring the campus construction traffic in via Market Place, rather than the A350. Following detailed consultation with the council's highways department, bringing construction traffic directly from the A350 is no longer considered to be the safest route into the site, and it would have caused considerable delays on the A350. 

It is now proposed that all construction vehicles, the majority of which are vans and cars, will travel from the A350, along Semington Road, and will enter and exit the Market Pace from either Spa Road or King Street. Where possible they will enter from one road and exit via the other, but this will be governed by other activity on the local road network. Construction traffic will exit the same way as it comes in. The site is likely to have around 48 vehicles visiting each day, considerably less than the amount that access it currently. As part of this process, a Section 73 notice will be submitted which provides a statutory 13-week consultation period.

Large vehicle movements in and out of site will be restricted during school drop-off and pick-up times. Therefore, large vehicle movements will be restricted to the following times during the school term:

• 7:00 - 08:00
• 09:00 - 15:15
• 16:30 - 18:00

There will be unavoidable points during construction where access is required during these times and this will be managed effectively by the contractor and with a minimum of 5 days' notice provided to local residents and businesses.

Area Board members have been consulted and support this approach.

Pedestrian access to the sports clubs will be maintained throughout the construction process but there will be no public parking on-site, except for a small number of blue badge spaces.  

The splitter island within the Market Place will be removed and stored, and will be reinstated upon completion of the works. A photographic survey will be undertaken and in the unlikely event that damage is caused the contractor will be responsible for repairing this.

Preparatory work will continue for the rest of this year, which will enable construction work to start on-site in early 2021.

The council has made contact with the sports clubs that access the site and the nearby residents at Cedar Close to ensure they are fully updated on how the construction period affects them.

Melksham Community Campus - September 2020 update

Planning and preparation for the Melksham Community Campus continues, with some minor design changes being made to help improve the overall customer experience and buildability.

The campus will offer a host of top-class facilities under one roof, including a gym, pool, sports hall, a library, café, and meeting space for the community.

While working with the contractor Pelikaan Construction Ltd and their leisure specialist Architects, some changes have been proposed to the Wiltshire Council-run project, including reducing the height of the sports and swimming pool halls, removing windows facing residential areas, the addition of a community/party room on the ground floor and addition of a dedicated cycle studio.

These changes are not significant enough to require a new planning application, but a Non-Material Amendment will need to be submitted to the planning department before the changes can be formally confirmed.

Preparatory work will continue for the rest of this year, which will enable construction work to start on-site in early 2021.

The full changes to the designs are:

• Café seating and pool spectator seating has been combined - flexible seating will be procured to allow for a more formal theatre style viewing for galas. General use will be in café layout. Significantly more efficient use of space
• Relocation of ground floor public WCs to allow for passive supervision from reception but addressing privacy issues raised on the previously approved scheme.
• Relocation of the ground floor furniture store to be closer to the library
• Relocation of the ground floor admin office from the corridor to directly behind the reception desk
• Rationalisation of the main stair/lift configuration to allow for one lift to be in the community zone, and one in the leisure zone
• Addition of community/party room on the ground floor adjacent to the café
• Additional windows on the East elevation (facing the carpark) into the pool hall
• Size of pool hall has reduced - Planning betterment as the bulk of the building was a concern to the planners. The pools themselves remain the same size as the consented scheme
• Wet change area reconfigured to provide improved flow of visitors and improve collection/drop off point for lessons. Group wet change areas brought into the main changing space to improve supervision for school groups
• Ground floor dry change layouts reviewed to allow for flexible use for wet/dry change as required
• Addition of turnstiles by reception separating community and leisure areas
• Addition of 'leisure stair' linking ground and first floor leisure areas
• A dividing wall has been added to the sports hall, to increase flexibility
• Fitness suite has moved from the first floor South side to the first floor North side - it will be visible from the main entrance creating a more dynamic approach to the building
• Additional window on the North elevation (facing Melksham House) into the fitness suite
• Addition of cycle studio by constructing over the top of the learner pool
• Studio relocated from first floor north to first floor south and removal of the Studio Window - Planning betterment as this was a key concern for residents of Cedar Close
• First floor dry change areas have been rationalised and relocated to the East side of the corridor to allow for views into the sports hall from the corridor
• First floor staff areas have moved to the other side of the corridor providing passive supervision over the pool hall
• Relocation of the ground floor small meeting room to the first floor - glazing adjusted on the north elevation to provide natural light into this meeting room
• External height of the sports Hall has reduced - Planning betterment as this was a key concern for residents of Cedar Close
• Alterations to the carpark and service yard plan to allow a cleaner front to the building
• External first floor plant areas reduced

September 2020 newsletter [143.29KB]

Melksham Community Campus floor plans [1.09MB]

Planning applications

Planning applications were originally submitted in March 2019 for the community campus project.

Following community feedback a revised planning application was subsequently submitted in August 2019.  

The application reference numbers are:

• 19/03329/DP3
• 19/03394/LBC

Please input the numbers on the planning portal to see the full applications. Please be aware that copying and pasting the reference numbers into the search box doesn't always work so if that's the case please input them manually.

Newsletter

We will be regularly publishing a newsletter to provide you with the latest news and developments on Melksham Community Campus. All available editions can be found below.

October - Melksham Community Campus Newsletter [253.95KB]

July 2019 - Melksham Community Campus Newsletter [170.97KB] 

May 2019 - Melksham Community Campus Newsletter [457.94KB]

April 2019 - Melksham Community Campus Newsletter [357.83KB]

Area board presentations

13 February 2019 [1.22MB] PDF (1.2mb)

24 April 2019  [1.43MB] PDF (1.4mb)

3 September 2019 [1.17MB] PDF (1.2mb)

Get in touch If you have any questions about the campus or programme of work, please get in touch at  MelkshamCampus@wiltshire.gov.uk  and we'd be happy to answer them.