Community centre’s campus plans

WESTBURY residents are asked to contribute their skills or ideas to a big plan for a campus to extend a Westbury community centre in Leigh Park.

Debbie Cole from the centre had explained the vision for the Leigh Park Community Campus to town councillors at an online meeting. She said the centre is already an important community hub which is used by all ages for groups and organisations to meet and run classes, provide workshops, entertainment, corporate events and weddings. The community centre is also home to a preschool and has recently opened its own coffee shop.

In creating the community campus, Debbie said that the trustees of the charity are committed to developing the land to extend the use of the popular centre to a wider community.  

New rooms could provide bases for holistic therapies, outreach classrooms for schools, office space, satellites for GP clinics, and Credit Union. 

She said that the site would provide Westbury’s first eco friendly shop with zero plastic. Allotments in the groups would provide fresh fruit and vegetables for sale and a community garden and nature trail would be included. Parking would be made available for buggies and bicycles.

To create the vision, Debbie said the charity would need a source of commercial funding. 

Since fencing went up around the site, there has been speculation about what was happening. Debbie said they had decided to fence the area off to prevent unwanted use. No official planning application for the campus has been submitted  but as well as being discussed with Westbury Town Council, the proposal has been discussed with Wiltshire Council, the Westbury Area Board, Westbury community engagement manager, the  local area co-ordinator at Wiltshire Council, and  social subscribers at White Horse Surgery Community First.

A statement about the project says, “Our future development plans of The Leigh Park Community Campus are designed to be all inclusive, community orientated and aimed at providing extended services to the local and wider community. We hope the additional services will include the following: 

• Health & treatment space; providing a range of services such as counselling, hypnotherapy, massage, holistic therapies, mental health and one-to-one sessions

• Office hubs; providing individual office hire space with breakout room for private meetings, calls and video conference. Available by the hour or long term

• Eco shop; a community shop providing produce sourced locally with a zero waste policy

• Education & teaching centre; an outreach classroom designed as an extension to learning by schools, the health sector, businesses and community access

• Community garden; providing a peaceful, fully accessible community initiated garden for all to enjoy and to provide a meeting point.”

Debbie said,  “If anyone also has any skills they can bring to the project, would like to be a part of the volunteering team or if local residents have a suggestion for the LPCC campus project they can email office@ lpccwestbury.org.uk