The Maltings Mystery explained ... after a fashion

MYSTIFIED by the lack of progress on the new Travelodge/temporary library where the British Heart Foundation used to be?

Me too, especially since a ‘To Let’ sign appeared on the hoarding round the silent building site a few days ago. 

So I did a bit of asking around.

Apparently - and understandably, due to the Covid pandemic - Travelodge is reviewing all its sites and plans across the country.

Wiltshire Council, meanwhile, has a duty to get a firm valuation for the proposed library area downstairs in the new building before it can commit to a lease.

But the crisis has also made it almost impossible to get a realistic valuation for a site such as this, since no-one is sure what the future holds for town centres and high streets.

So investment company Nuveen, which owns the freehold of the land, is testing the water by seeing if anyone else might take it on. If someone does, it would put the kibosh on the council’s plan to move the library there until a more permanent home can be found.

I do sympathise to some extent with Wiltshire in all this. Every time they get their act together and come up with a plan to regenerate the Maltings/Central Car Park, someone or something comes along and moves the goalposts.

Events, dear boy, as Macmillan did or didn’t say, depending on where you look it up on the internet.

Not helping at all – although of course it will help the city as a whole – is the revised flood modelling carried out by the Environment Agency.

Flood alleviation work must – repeat, must – be done before the council’s planners can finalise their ideas for the whole regeneration project.

And that includes the library. Which to my mind, therefore, looks likely to stay exactly where it is for the time being.

No-one, as it was pointed out to me, is making investment decisions right now.

Add to that the fact that virtually every local authority in the country, Wiltshire included, is facing bankruptcy come August if – and it’s a big IF – the government allows that to happen.

And what have you got? A big headache, that’s the only thing for sure.