Views of Melksham - November 2010
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2010-11-13 18:17:10 - Graham EllisI've been getting rather technical ... and I know this blog is read by a few folks who like to see what's old, what's new, what's odd and what's pretty in Melksham. So here are some picture all less that 2 weeks old, and all taken withing a mile and a half of home (one was actually taken out of the window of one of our bedrooms ...). And I'll add some local news and views too.
The leaves are falling from the trees (it was a quick fall this year); leaves on the pavement between home and the hotel as Gypsy and I walked in to work one morning last week.
It's a couple of months now since First withdrew all but one of their Bath to Easterton buses, and Faresaver stepped in to fill most of the gaps. Good to see that Faresaver buses have been upgraded and are now "almost as good as the First ones" according to reports; I also hear that their staff are usually friendly, whereas one or two First driver have been being a bit awkward at times. Funny how times change!
Snowberry lane no longer ends in a field, nor a fence - the road goes on to a well-engineered roundabout, and the first of the new houses in the Bloor Homes areas are now occupied - pictured earlier today.
It's the muddy season again - paths that were dry a month ago are now muddy-slippy, and the view here that a year ago was across open fields is now across to housing. Chatting with a long time resident and his chocolate Labradors today, we were discussing that we should start walking the dogs on the next series of paths out towards Redstocks, and the Gallops at the bottom of Sandridge Hill.
Ground has been broken for the new Asda store on the main A350 / A365. The old Countryside store has been demolished, and very quickly the old buildings taken down. It's good to see Countrywide doing well too - up there today, I note a hastily added sign to "Overflow Car Park".
The Barratts Housing at Snowberry Lane / the Gateway / East Melksham is slightly behind that of Bloors - none is yet occupied as far as I can tell - but the show house is open, and it's no longer hard to imagine people living here, and traffic on this road. Let's hope they get an early bus option, as it's a bit far for everyone to walk into town and the centre's already congested enough to discourage too many more cars.
Now nothing to choose ... I scrolled back up as I was labelling these picture and realised that Faresaver and First are now running the same model of buses on the Bath to Melksham segment. But as you can see, the First bus only goes to Bowerhill and certainly - along Spa Road - it's carrying fresh air. I'm being careful to not to say "not working for First" since bus routes do tend to get sparse at their outer ends, but I do wonder.
Not as bad as it looks - and I just liked the picture. Doing the countryside thing - modern clay pidgeon shooting (I guess it should be called plastic pidgeon shooting) in The Spa.
The fields to the East of Melksham once again. The path ahead over the next year or two will be an interesting one in Wiltshire; the Local Transport Plan up to the year 2026 is currently out for "consultation" and I went to a meeting in Devizes at the start of this month to learn and make inputs. Alas - it seem that the decisions have been mostly made by the authors, and the inputs being sought are no more than prioritising some things over others, with the audience invited like school kids to put up to 3 green dots and one orange dot on a chart to indicate that council-chosen options should be higher or lower.But this is a good time to make decisions that change things, and set things up for the future. When the budget is growing, there are big choices to be made which effect the future overall shape of total spend. And there are equally important decisions to be made as the budget drops, for they too will - just as much - effect the overall shape of Council services in years to come.