Planning, preparation and progress for Melksham Community Campus

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 Pellikaan 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.

Cllr Ian Blair-Pilling, Wiltshire Council Cabinet Member for Leisure, said: "Despite the schedule change due to COVID-19, planning continues to move at pace for this project as we look to get construction under way early next year. The changes to the design are very sensible and we are keeping the quality of the overall customer experience at the heart of the decisions we make.

"This will be a facility the whole area can be proud of, and while there is still lots of work ahead of us, it's really exciting to see all the planning and hard work really coming together."

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

More information can be found at Wiltshire Council's dedicated Melksham Community Campus page at