PLANS to close major roads in Marlborough for the upcoming Jazz Festival have met with so many complaints that the town council has suggested a compromise scheme.

A large crowd attended a recent planning committee meeting to give their opinions on the application to temporarily close New Road, part of the High Street, Kingsbury Street and The Parade from 10am until midnight on July 16 for the duration of the Jazz Festival. Wiltshire Council had asked Marlborough Town Council to come up with a compromise to the plans which would be acceptable to the high number of people objecting.

Town councillors have now voted for a compromise, to close only one of the three roads from 5pm - but they have left it to Wiltshire Council to decide which one.

A number of options were presented to the members of the public who had turned up to the meeting, offering variations of the road closures, as well as an independent risk assessment which concluded that a road closure was the only safe option.

Among the main points brought up in the evening were the disruption caused due to traffic build-up through the town in previous years and the impact of the backlog of traffic on surrounding villages. Some people asked why the risk assessment, carried out on behalf of the organisers, had not considered a road closure starting at 5pm, and suggested a different location.

Only hours before last Monday's meeting the town council had received an email from Parvis Khansari, associate director of Highways and Transport, confirming that Wiltshire Council had received a high number of objections to the application and that the comments made mirrored similar objections from previous years.

After some debate the councillors put the matter to a vote, and decided to formally object to the original road closure application, suggesting instead the compromise for a single road closures beginning at 5pm and a further three options for the bandstand, which would involve just closing The Parade or closing just the section of the highway running along High Street/Kingsbury Street from the Town Hall to Silverless Street of just New Road.

Councillors Dobson, Castle, Hannaford-Dobson, Dow, Ross, Rose, Farrell, Cook, Allen, Lam and Light all voted in favour of the compromise plan.