Town Hall is what we need

DEVO Developments - a limited liability company wholly controlled by convicted offender Peter Caldwell, has now completed on the purchase of the Town Hall. Will he live up to his promise and rid us of the pigeons? TIME WILL TELL updated

LATEST - THE Town Hall was put up for action at Bristol Zoo in the summer when it failed to reach its reserve price. Subsequently an agreement has been made between the receivers and auctioneers to sell the property to Devo Developments, an off the shelf company created in 2007 and which according to a webcheck, has assets of 500 pounds. As of October the deal has not been completed and no agreement is likely to be reached between this company and Warminster Preservation Trust. We leave readers to draw their own conclusions as to what is going on but rest assured, we intend to kick up an almighty fuss once the dust has settled. The Town Hall and town centre needs this diversion like a hole in the head.

TIME TO GRASP THE PRIZE

ONLY those who are aged 60 and over can recall Warminster Town Hall in its full splendour but strong echos of its grandeur still resonate in almost every corner of the 1830s building's interior.
thstairs

From its high ceilings with massive cornice finishings to the grand ballroom with its thstairs2

minstrels' gallery (pictured below) upstairs, this building has the hallmarks of a grander age than our own.
But if we are to recapture some of Warminster's past glory then we, the present generation of townsfolk, will have to come together put in the work and effort, and indeed money, to restore the building - the town's second most important after the Minster church.
Those who argue for spending huge sums on the Assembly Rooms really will seem quite bonkers once the populace has the opportunity to view the cleaned up interior on 10 and 11 September during the heritage weekend.
The team from WETS entered the building on Sunday 23 August 2010 to make a start on the work of cleaning up the mess left inside by previous occupants and the pigeons in preparation for the public viewing.
Thanks to the efforts of George Jolley and Chris March, who have been working on this project with the Civic Trust, things are going forward with local thballroom

businesses Warminster Glass and Northwood both making useful sponsorship offers to help in maintaining momentum.
Steve Dancey said: ''For me this opportunity to get a full picture was thgallery

an eyeopener.
''I had previously been inside the building to visit the offices at the front and cells below when it was known as the Turnkey restaurant.
''But I had never been upstairs to the ballroom. (pictured above)
''This is a splendid room which could be restored to provide Warminster with a facility of which it could be justly proud.''

thfron

LOOK WHAT COULD BE ACHIEVED

DEVIZES TOWN HALL

The home of Devizes Town Council - in the heart of the town

town H Marlborough

MARLBOROUGH TOWN HALL

The home of Marlborough Town Council - in the heart of the town

Town H Corsham

CORSHAM TOWN HALL

The home of Corsham Town Council - in the heart of the town

town H Romsey

ROMSEY TOWN HALL

The home of Romsey Town Council - in the heart of the town

town h clean

WARMINSTER TOWN HALL

The home of pigeons - in the heart of the town

WHY SHOULD WE BE LEFT WITH THIS? Why should the bunch of people running the town council be allowed to waste 800,000 pounds on moving their desks to a white elephant building (the Assembly Rooms)?
The Town Hall building needs to become the home of Warminster Town Council - it would have so many knock-on benefits and would hugely restore the morale of the town and uplift the whole historic town centre. Our town hall should be a symbol of the town's strength not a badge of its decrepitude.
Other towns have taken over their town halls - Romsey and Corsham both within the past 10 years.
Of course those who don't like this idea (Why???) say it has never been used as a town hall. No of course it hasn't as town councils have only existed since 1973 and by then the blinkered blitherers had taken over our civic affairs. BUT the Town Hall has been an important civic building in past decades and is the proper home for the town council as it assumes greater powers.

The public view is clear - they don't want the downmarket Assembly Rooms as the main civic building but has greater aspiration for this historic market town.

TOWN POLL WAS HELD ON THURSDAY 22 APRIL -

Q Do you approve of the town council's proposed move to the Assembly Rooms ?
RESULT
no 540 (91.8 per cent)
yes 48 (8.2 per cent)

Look beyond Trowbridge and Westbury

MEMBERS of the Visionforwarminster team have considerable experience of how some other local communities organise their affairs - and we should all be prepared to look beyond Trowbridge and Westbury for our inspiration.
Space is clearly a problem at Dewey House but this could be overcome by stripping out the existing council chamber and using that room as offices and holding council meetings in the main hall.
Special modern furniture that stores away can be used in such situations so that when the floor space of the hall is needed the furniture can be stored or reconfigured to the shape required.
Many other local authorities operate this system - locally Test Valley Borough Council which uses the upper hall at its Guildhall in Andover for council upstairs

meetings and it works very well. (They also manage to set a far lower council tax).
The photo sees the upper hall of the Andover Guildhall prepared for the borough council's tax setting meeting this year.
If we were to operate such a system at Dewey House it would be perfectly workable.
''There are always those in Warminster who will try to come up with fatuous reasons why we can't do this but we need a can do attitude rather than a can spend a million attitude in these difficult times,'' said Steve Dancey, who regularly attends council meetings in many towns in a very wide variety of establishments.
Ideally and in the longer term we must establish Warminster's repuation as a quality town and to do this it is imperative that the main civic building (the Town Hall) is the focal point of civic affairs.
Andover was lucky as the council there retained its Guildhall (pictured below) which dates from same period as Warminster Town Hall.
''In past times this building was used by the UDC as the place where royalty was welcomed to the town and it should be a prestige location again,'' said

Steve.
''I'm very sad that the existing town council doesn't share my aspirations for Warminster in this respect; I have tried hard to see why as I know many townsfolk do.
''Those of us who have lived here a long time - often all our lives - feel the loss of that town hall building very keenly especially when it is coupled with the loss, in 1981, of the Regal Cinema just 200 yards away.
''If we are to go for a huge loan I'm sure more people would support the idea of spending it wisely on our town hall.''