THE motto of the Chippenham Town Council is Unity and Loyalty.

This last week has seen the sad event of two Liberal Democrat town councillors resigning to become Independent.

What happened? The two, now Independent councillors, have resigned owing to a sectional interest of opposition to the skate park being sited in the Monkton Park area next to the Wiltshire Council Offices in Monkton Hill and, despite reassurances of this being a much improved design, and noise defeating construction than a previous skate board area that a few residents had been affected by. The site proposed is next to the offices now housing Wiltshire Police at the end of the Monkton Hill offices and overlooking the site proposed by Wiltshire Council.

A petition has been signed by many in Monkton Park, some who live nowhere near the site. As a former resident of Monkton Park and a Wiltshire county councillor for eight years of town division, which included Monkton Park, many friends there have expressed sadness that they did so, as they remember having children that needed extra play areas in the Monkton Park area.

Three years ago when the Chippenham Deanery Churches had a Flame of Hope Mission event with all churches holding events for their communities across the Deanery, picnics, fun days, folk dancing, suppers, evening events; St Paul’s Church, Malmesbury Road, advertised a ‘skate park’ event in the former car park of the Westinghouse site, where more than 100 children of all ages turned up with their skate boards.

This fully demonstrated the need for what we had been promising our young folk for years in Chippenham.

Sadly there have been scare stories with tales of drug dealers, deafening noise, unruly kids and the usual NIMBY attitude of putting it as far away from them as possible. It should be noted that Chippenham Town has now been awarded the status of Purple Flag, an accreditation that our town centre meets and surpasses the standards of excellence in managing the night-time economy. This will include the area of the proposed skate park.

But one has to call into question the responsibility of elected members of Wiltshire Council and Chippenham town councillors who sign on to represent the whole town to the best of their ability whether it be bus shelters, cemeteries, allotments, play areas, street areas, leisure and public buildings for both young and old of Chippenham.

Yes, we have political parties that we may belong to with differing priorities, but we all should strive to carry out our duties with equanimity in that spirit of ‘Unity and Loyalty’.

MARY FALLON, Chippenham town councillor