With Calne Town Council's Amenities, Conservation & Sustainability Manager, Councillor Celia Stevens and I worked with Caitlin at Wiltshire Council's Grant Application and Planting Support (GAPS) team apply for funding to plant trees and hedgerows. This was an exhaustive project taking place over many months including desktop surveys and creating location maps, along with onsite visits throughout Calne.
I am pleased to report that we have been successful in our grant application for substantial tree and hedgerow planting across Calne, which will result in close to 70 trees being planted at various locations in Calne and around 250 metres of hedgerow at Beversbrook Sports Facility.
The total fund which covers the initial purchase and planting of the trees as well as 15 years of future maintenance came to over £40,000.
Victoria Terrace is named for Alexandrina Victoria (24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901). Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death and Empress of India from 1 May 1876. Her reign lasted for 63 years, 216 days, second only to our current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
Queen Victoria reigned during a time of massive expansion for the British Emprire and the people of the Victorian Era were well known for their knowledge and daring in all things engineering, scientific, industrial, and military.
Providence Row, Victoria Terrace
Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert in 1840 and to reinforce the connection of this street name to Queen Victoria, the impressive Albert Villa (1 Victoria Terrace) sits on the corner of North Street and Victoria Terrace, completing the pair.
Victoria Terrace was built mostly by 1885, with one set of terraced housing, Providence Row built in 1870 by Mr. James Cleverley who acquired the land from the estate of George Shadforth Ogilvie. Victoria Terrace continued as a private road, at least until 1890, however it seems that there was resistance from the property owners at the time in passing the street over to the authorities, even when the authorities had paid for improved sewers in 1889[1]. However, in 1890, when they asked the council for a street lamp to be erected, the Clerk took no time in writing to them to advise that as long as the street remained private, the responsibility was theirs, and further to this, the authority was now calling upon the property owners to install a lamp![2] Unfortunately the saga does not appear to continue in the newspapers.
References: [1]'Victoria Terrace Sewer' Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, Thursday 18 April 1889 [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000360/18890418/065/0007 [Accessed on 1 October 2019] [2] 'Calne Urban Saniatary Authority and the Infectious Disease (Notification) Act' Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, Thursday 23 January 1890 [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000360/18900123/065/0008 [Accessed on 1 October 2019]
The path is the only formal entrance to the North End Play Area from the Amberley Close side. Residents and other play area users who needed to access it via prams, mobility scooters, scooters, etc., had problems managing the rough surface of the path that had not been tarmacked. This path had deteriorated significantly over the past few years. During and after periods of rain, it became a series of puddles, leading users to avoid it and use the grass instead. For some, this entrance to our facility was not accessible at all.
This path experienced high usage in the mornings and afternoons during term times, as parents and guardians took their children to Fynamore School.
Now that the work on the path is complete, I would like to share some background information on why this project took a while to reach its conclusion.
I first began working on this project about a year ago when I submitted a Highways Improvement Request. It was at this point that I discovered that from a Highways perspective, Wiltshire Council would not be taking this footpath into Highway Maintainable at Public Expense – even though this path is owned by Wiltshire Council. This was quite a surprise, as Google Maps showed the path in 2016 with the gravel in reasonable condition (at this point, I still don’t know who financed or installed this path).
I began working with Cllr MacNaughton on this issue, raising it with Streetscene Engineer Andrea Begent. Andrea put in a lot of work to see how this issue could be progressed, but unfortunately, Wiltshire Council would not accept this path as a highway and therefore would not release any funding for its improvement. Unfortunately, Streetscene was not able to fund this project either, as it was beyond the level of funding they could access, and no money was available from Facilities Management at Wiltshire Council.
During this period, I kept Calne Town Council Officers updated regarding this ongoing issue. I am grateful that our Director of Council Services took an interest and put it on the Amenities and Facilities Committee agenda for December 2024, with an options report from our Amenities, Conservation & Sustainability Manager. During that discussion, as a committee, we unanimously resolved to delegate this project to our Amenities, Conservation & Sustainability Manager, who wished to request Wiltshire Council to use any overspill from works at High Street for this project. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and funds were immediately released for this project from the Housing Income community benefit budget line.
It is wonderful to see this path completed. 𝐈 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐝, particularly my fellow Calne Town Councillors who agreed to release the funds for this path knowing that while it is Wiltshire Council land, it is our residents in Calne who will benefit from this more accessible path, which is a vital link to our play area at North End.
School Road connects Lickhill Road to Beversbrook Road, the northern distributor route. This was created as part of The Calne Consortium's Lansdowne Park development and is named as it runs alongside the Persimmon-built Fynamore Community Primary School. In the past, the land used to be part of Calne's North Field.
