A FINAL decision on the play park on Chippenham is likely to be delivered tomorrow by Monmouthshire County Council’ cabinet.

The recommendation put before them is to create a new play park closer to the town and in a more visible part of Chippenham park.

The original proposal in 2016 was to fund a refurbishment of the existing play area in 2016 with £85,000 of development money.

Calls for an alternative site were dismissed and MCC planned to go ahead with the refurbishment option as a number of factors would make a move difficult; the fact that Chippenham was a registered village green and would require consent from the Welsh Assembly being one of them.

However pressure from groups such as the ‘Friends of Chippenham Mead’ forced the council into a U-turn and after a number of site options were put forward, a decision has been made to site it close to the rear entrance to the police station.

One of the junior rugby pitches will see some shrinkage and Village Green Consent as well as planning permission will need to be obtained before the park can go ahead.

One of the dangers faced by MCC is that the Welsh Assembly may well ‘call-in’ the plan and make a decision themselves, overruling any decision the council will look to make.

The prospect of the developers clawing back the section 106 monies is slim as the deadline has been set back to 2021.

The advantages will be that the park will be more visible and be up to present-day legislation and be further away from the A40 trunk road.

Mike Moran, MCC officer who has been the author of reports to the council said he was very hopeful that the recommendations will be agreed as the recommendation seems to have broad support at member level and quite a lot of support from local people/organisations

He acknowledged there: “are still objections from some local people to developing the play area on a different part of the village green but these seem to be the exception rather than the rule!

“If the report is approved, we’ll then submit a planning application and an application for village green consent. If the consent application takes as long to process as we think, it’s unlikely that any physical works will commence on site until 2019.”

Lloyd Davies of Monmouth’s Rugby Club said that the club were happy that a new location has been found for the relocation of the park: “that is not smack in the middle of our training area as previously proposed!  

“The new park area does involve the movement and reconfiguration of our under-8s pitch but will be an excellent addition to Chippenham which young siblings can use while their brothers and sisters enjoy their rugby.”