Cherish Chippenham Day 
Chippenham in Bloom 
The High Street 
Melody and Ben 
The Buttercross 
The Cherish Chippenham Business Awards sponsored by Central Chippenham Partnership were held on Friday 1st March.
The finalists and overall winners for each category were:
Congratulations to all who were nominated and who won an award. The ceremony at the Neeld Hall was the largest of its kind and Cherish Chippenham will be looking forward to hosting the next ceremony.
The Chippenham Business Awards organised by the Cherish Chippenham Town Team have been established to celebrate the very best of local business by giving recognition of the past year’s achievements and triumphs.
The aim of the Awards night is to:
An invitation is extended to all Chippenham based businesses to submit an entry under one or more of the categories listed.
Our first special Gala Dinner awards ceremony will be held at the Neeld Hall on Friday 1st March 2013.
A simple entry form is available on our site and you are encouraged to supply any other material that you feel supports your nomination, such as marketing material or press cuttings for judging. Our panel of independent judges will assess and grade the entries producing a short list of category nominees that will be publicised in local news papers and via our website.
Tickets for the Black Tie Gala Dinner will be available to business owners, entry nominations, sponsors of the event or anyone interested in celebrating the Chippenham business community soon.
Expect Red Carpet treatment all the way with a spectacular drinks reception, photographers, film crews and entertainment the likes never seen in Chippenham!
A celebrity compere will announce winners on the night with comedy, entertainment and music throughout this magical evening. A fun casino and live music will also be included in the ticket price!
Three finalists from our main two categories will have a 3 minute nomination video made to be shown at the award ceremony evening.
Cherish Chippenham have commissioned BID set-up and advice company Mosaic Partnership to conduct a feasibility study.
In this initial study we will be asking the question “will the BID format work in Chippenham Town Centre?”
To answer this, Mosaic Partnership will be undertaking surveys, analysis of data and public/business consultation.
The final part of the feasibility study after analysis and surveying is the ‘Essential Guide to BIDs Workshop’ in late January which will build from the survey to get more detailed info.
We need attendance of between 30-60 people for this to be most effective from the following 6 sectors:
National Retail – 5-10 people
Independent Retail 5-10,people
Office/Commercial – 5-10 people
Food & Drink 5-10 people
Nightime Economy -5 people
Public Sector – 5 people
Other (Transport, Community, Residential etc) – 5-10 people
Cherish Chippenham will be issuing invitations to attend a meeting of about 90 minutes but if you are interested in attending please do contact us.
After the question of what a Chippenham BID would cover and concern over duplication of efforts with council statutory services, we can now outline their baseline services.
Areas to be Covered by Baseline Service Statements
Baseline Statements are designed to ensure that the BID services are over and above existing statutory/agreed provision and that it will not substitute or replace any of the statutory/agreed levels of provision from the public agencies in the Baseline Statements.
Baseline Service Statements normally cover at least the following areas of Town Centre activity. These can be agreed with all public agencies and where appropriate the private sector.
• Cleansing & Maintenance
• Car Parking
• CCTV
• Tourism
• Markets
• Festivals & Events
• Street Furniture
• Street Lighting
• Town Centre Planting & Landscaping
• Public Conveniences
• Town Centre Management
• Highways & Roads
• Policing
Town Team members on behalf of Cherish Chippenham have commissioned a local architect to visualise our ideas and plans for Island park and Monkton park areas. Please let us know your thoughts and if you think that the skate park would be best suited in this area next to the main sports facilities.
Cherish Chippenhham strongly believe the best location for the Chippenham Skate park is on Monkton Park next to the Olympiad and not Island Park for several reasons:
We have had some designs drawn up with the Skate Park based at this location incorporating some features which we believe would help to reduce any potential noise impact a from a concrete site and have attached these with this statement.
Furthermore, we believe Island Park would provide an ideal location for an outdoor stage together with a hard standing area to support the Folk Festival and other Town Centre Festivals which will increase the vibrancy and footfall into Chippenham Town Centre and is also displayed on our drawings.
With three senior schools in Chippenham, we hope that Wiltshire Council Skate Board Task Force has the courage to stand up for the majority by voting for an outstanding skate park in Monkton Park instead of being threatened by the minority.
We also hope that the elections in May 2013 do not impede the decision on this important facility for the Youth of Chippenham.
12:00pm Friday 30th November 2012 in Letters
I attended the skate park meeting for Chippenham on Monday night at Sheldon School.
It was heartening to see so many teenagers there to support the project together with their parents, grandparents and members of the public.
It was clear that everyone wants a skate park but of the ten sites that have been investigated and deemed unsuitable for various reasons, Monkton Park is still the overwhelming favourite.
Monkton Park ticks a lot of boxes including a central location offering easy access; close proximity to the station; near the college and Olympiad; supports town centre shops; offers safety for everyone as in front of the Neighbourhood Police Team at the council’s Monkton Park offices.
Many other benefits to the skate park were discussed including the social and health benefits of skating as a sport as well as keeping youngsters off the street.
There were complaints about noise based on the previous site from a few Monkton residents. It was encouraging to hear Jane Scott’s heartfelt plea for the skate park to go ahead in Monkton Park.
The lack of visual options made it difficult for people to build a picture of how the site might look. The Cherish Chippenham board have commissioned a local architect, Jon Llewellyn and member of Chippenham Vision Board to draw up some plans of this crucial town centre area with different options which include the possibility of more parking; more for young people; a semi-permanent festival/event venue on River Island; exhibition space; and a riverside market place.
The plans will be available on our website www.chippenhamtownteam.co.uk and Cherish Chippenham Facebook towards the end of next week for members of the public to view.
Cherish Chippenham also asked the area board skate park task force to consider a mobile skate park until a more permanent location can be agreed. We are hoping to have a mobile skate ramp available to use during our family festival in May 2013 but hope that a permanent site can be agreed before then.
It is disappointing that most of the other Wiltshire town residents have been able to work together to provide a skate park and we hope that Wiltshire Council will have the courage to stand up for the majority need instead of being threatened by the minority.
Sadly, it is impossible to please everyone all the time and the task force have a difficult job to do, so we must continue to support them.
Melody Thompson, Chairman, Cherish Chippenham CIC.
12:00pm Thursday 29th November 2012 in Chippenham
Chippenham Town Council says it is disappointed after Wiltshire Council rejected its proposals for concessionary car parking.
The town council put forward two ideas to help shoppers and traders.
One was for free parking in all public car parks in Chippenham after 3pm one day a week in the run- up to Christmas.
The other idea was for a permanent scheme to benefit the greatest number of users of car parks based on market research.
Officials from the town council met with counterparts at Wiltshire Council last month to discuss the ideas but they failed to gain support.
The town council suggested the schemes to increase the number of people visiting Chippenham. Wiltshire Council increased parking charges at different rates in towns across the county a few years ago, resulting in the one-hour charge in Chippenham going up from 50p to £1.10, although it did reduce it to £1 following lobbying from traders and others.
A report by Chris Williams, head of support services at the town council to the council’s strategy and resources committee, said Wiltshire Council’s policy was to freeze all charges until at least March 2014.
He said Wiltshire Council said that footfall in town centres was declining before parking charges were increased.
Councillor Andrew Noblet, leader of the town council, said: “We are very disappointed and frustrated by Wiltshire Council’s response.
“There is a great deal of concern in the town about parking charges.
“The feeling is the hike was too great and that has put people off from visiting.
“The town is not dying on its feet but it would be more vibrant if parking charges were cheaper.”
Ben Gregory, co-chairman of Cherish Chippenham and a trader in New Road, said: “Wiltshire Council seems to have one rule for one town and one rule for another. Parking charges in Trowbridge are cheaper than Chippenham and Salisbury has a concessionary scheme.”
Wiltshire Council is planning to offer two days of free car parking per town a year.
A Wiltshire Council spokesman said: “All towns in Wiltshire have two free days parking available to use whenever they wish throughout the year, and every resident can take advantage of the buy one hour, get one free offer in the week before Christmas.
“The voucher, which can be used multiple times, is in the latest copy of Your Wiltshire or it can be downloaded at www.wiltshire.gov.uk.
In Chippenham, a free day of parking has been given to help with the Victorian market.”
The government has offered all those Town Teams that were not selected to be become a Portas Pilot the opportunity to become a Town Team Partner to help improve their high streets.
Over 400 towns applied to be a Portas Pilot and 27 teams were selected. The establishment of 326 Town Team Partners will help to maintain the momentum and energy that the competition generated.
Those registered to become Town Team Partners will receive a share of a multi-million pound fund to take forward elements of their plans.
Town Team Partners will also be able to get to support from the Association of Town Centre Management which will work with Town Team Partners to:
All those towns that have registered to become Town Team Partners have the backing of their local MP, who has pledged to support their high street.
The government promoted the retail markets industry by organising and supporting a National Markets Day. This was part of a ‘Love Your Local Market’ fortnight of events aimed at helping new market traders starting up businesses, and to celebrate and promote our local markets as part of the retail mix that a place can offer.
During the fortnight, 4,000 pitches were made available to business entrepreneurs, young start-ups and would-be retailers to set up a stall and test out their business ideas. Over 1,400 of these subsidised pitches were taken up in 400 markets.
We are also supporting a range of measures in response to the Portas High Street review, including:
In addition, we’ve introduced a number of measures to support high streets, including:
As part of the growth agenda, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister commissioned retail expert Mary Portas to conduct an independent review of the high street’s future.
‘The Portas Review: an independent review into the future of our high streets’ was published on 13 December 2011. It set out what Mary Portas thought had led to the decline of the high street and made 28 recommendations about what could be done – by government, local authorities and business – to breathe life back into them.
The Prime Minister asked Grant Shapps to take forward the government’s response to the recommendations and this was published on 30 March 2012.
Several other organisations are supporting the Portas Pilots:
