A NEW site for the Chippenham play park has been given the green light by town councillors following an appraisal of the position.

Members of Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) visited Chippenham Mead last week to investigate the change and Monmouth Town Council met on Tuesday evening (15th May) to vote to recommend the plan for approval.In 2016, MCC announced it had £85k to invest “in new play equipment and safety surfacing in Chippenham Mead” and despite calls for an alternative site, the local authority intended to proceed with the refurbishment works on the play area in its existing location.

The decision to refurbish was slammed by the groups claiming that a better solution would be to create a new one at the other end of the park, close to Waitrose.

However MCC have now said that they intend to apply for Village Green Consent following a proposal to relocate the park to the other side of the bund to the present park, known as site E.

The revised site requires no advance site works, no loss of trees and no footpath diversions;  is a more “open” and easily viewed site, so it’s safer for children; it does not affect other users of the village green and in particular it does not involve the loss of any sports pitches and  it is not located close to any residential properties.

“We hope to get the application for a Village Green Consent in by the summer, and then we should get a response back by 2019 which will give us time to plan things out,” Mr Moran told the Beacon.

A final decision on the location will be made at the council’s Cabinet meeting on 6th June.