Trowbridge urged to have its say on future town developments
Engagement events to share ideas with the Council are being held throughout the day
Last updated 30th Jan 2025
People in Trowbridge are being encouraged to share their idea's for developing the town centre today.
A number of a engagement events are taking place in the town as Wiltshire Council aims to find out what local people want to see next in the town.
They're taking place at The Shires Shopping Centre from 11am to 1pm, County Hall from 2pm to 5pm and at Still Sisters Distillery from 6pm to 7pm.
£16million has been spent, thanks to the Future High Streets Fund, on bringing the Town Hall Arts building back into use and improving accessibility around the town.
£25 million is being spent on a new leisure centre.
But Council Leader Richard Clewer wants to have more projects in the pipeline.
"We want to start pulling together some ideas that we can then consult on in a lot more detail. But to give a framework of projects that people would like to see to improve the town centre," he told Greatest Hits Radio.
Cllr Clewer said they've learnt from previous projects across Wiltshire that it's critical to develop a thorough understanding of what people really want.
He said all idea's are welcome: "We need to understand from residents, the areas that they think could be improved could be developed, could be changed, what is it they want?
"This is a very much an open book approach to what people want to see, on a small scale or on a larger scale to make Trowbridge better."
The Council Leader told us he's heard rumours of a desire for a market place in the town, saying it makes sense when people speak to him about it. But he insists that needs to be a public led idea, rather than one from the council.
Cllr Clewer told us it's imperative that the council make face-to-face contact with the public in order to get a true feeling of what people want.
He said: "We're not doing a sort of formulaic structured online conversation. We're saying come along and tell us what you think it needs to be done face to face. It needs to be teased and explored, so we get that proper understanding."
Cllr Clewer referred to his previous experience in transforming Salisbury's Market Place, saying: "The first thing I did was go and talk to an awful lot of people to find out what they wanted before I put a survey together to find out whether the public agreed with that.
"You've got to get out, you've got to engage with people to get that richness of ideas."