Marlborough Town Council
Planters, finger posts and black paint
Please bear with us while we tidy up our town centre
The Town Council is part way through a project to improve signage for residents and visitors and to smarten up some of the town centre's street furniture.
This work has only just begun, so please bear with us.
We've received a few complaints about this work, especially about the appearance of, and positioning of, new black planters (ugly wooden feet etc). We'd like to reassure you that we haven’t finished this project yet. The new planters will have matching black ‘skirts’ attached to the base to hide the wooden feet (the feet are necessary for drainage and to provide access by forklift truck if we need to move them). We will be adding Rowan trees and plants. Once the trees and plants mature and the flowers bloom they, not the planters, will draw the eye. Some of the old blue wooden planters near these new planters will be removed. Ideally we would have done this the same day the planters were delivered, but we need heavy lifting equipment so we're waiting for outside help with this.
The planters are not the only thing we're changing. With a consistent, smart black and gold theme, here are a few more changes to look out for:
- New 'Welcome to Marlborough' signs have been commissioned for the major approach roads to the town
- New, accurate, finger posts will replace existing finger posts which are showing their age and are sometimes inaccurate
- Adding new planters large enough for trees
- Repainting street furniture at some locations with black paint, for example bridge railings, bollards, wooden planters and benches
- Blue wooden planters will be removed
The trees and planters are funded by Wiltshire Towns Programme grants from central government, via Wiltshire Council.
Our small team is doing this work on top of our usual workload, with the added challenge of having a couple of staff on sick leave and our team having to respond to a recent attempted break-in to our workshop. That said, we are moving as fast as we can to finish off the planters: some of you may have spotted our Deputy Town Clerk at High Walls yesterday lending a hand with the painting.
As we said above, please bear with us while we continue with this piece of work.
Here are some before, after and in progress photos:
Background
In 2022 we asked you to tell us what you like about Marlborough and how you'd like to see the town centre develop. Read about the survey here.
Your feedback was taken on board and the Town Council has been working on a range of improvements based on what you told us. Here are a few examples:
- 89% said they'd like to see an improvement to the street scene. Comments included more prominent and accurate signs and requests for trees to enhance the street scene and to help with air quality. The work we are doing now is a direct response to that, and has been funded by grant money.
- You said you'd like to see traffic flows improved. This isn't an easy or quick thing to do. We have been working with Wiltshire Council to capture accurate data about traffic movements and build a computer model from the data. Adding possible changes to road layouts and junctions to the model will then help us to understand what might be possible to help keep everyone moving. This modelling exercise should complete by the end of the summer, when we'll have the results and should be able to take a view on what, if anything, might be done and how much it will cost.
- The front cover strapline and introductory page of our Town Guide, produced last year, were written directly from what you told us you liked about the town.