History lies in ruins

For four years the wonderful Art Deco building that was once Goldiggers night club has stood empty as repeated attempts to find a new developer have floundered. But Chippenham is not the only town to have an embarrassing white elephant at its centre. Gazette reporters look at the history of several historic buildings and ask what is happening now to save our heritage.

The grandiose Art Deco former Gaumont cinema and nightclub Goldiggers has been a mighty white elephant in Chippenham town centre since its closure nearly four years ago.

Since September 2000, the building in Timber Street has stood empty and boarded up, slowly succumbing to the inevitable decay and dereliction awaiting any unoccupied building.

And while the Gaumont, built in 1936, sinks into ruin the debate about its future runs on, with developers determined to raze it to the ground to make way for shops and flats, and local people adamant the building should be preserved as a community venue.

Developers Tribecka Land Ltd have exchanged contracts with owners North Wiltshire District Council, and intend to complete the deal following the submission of a planning application in September this year.

Tribecka's plans to demolish the building and build ground floor shop units with flats above.

But a surge of support for the building has resulted in the formation of a new protest group, Preservation of Goldiggers/Gaumont, (POGG) with members intent on getting the building listed before the bulldozers in.

The problem, according to district council leader Coun Ruth Coleman, is money. She said the cost of returning the building to a state fit for use ran into millions and the leisure industry was not interested in the site.

"We have been told it would cost around £2.5 million to strip out the

asbestos and replace the roof, and that's not including any internal refurbishment," she said.

"We could take that out of reserves but every million we take out reduces the amount the money earns by approximately £70,000 a year which we would otherwise use to reduce the council tax, not just for one year but every year afterwards.

"The difficulty all along is that people assume the district council can just get hold of money.

"Obviously we want to do what is best for the local community should we be diverting a huge amount of money to save an old building or receiving a capital receipt for it being re-used, so we can use the money for other facilities in the community?"

Coun Coleman said she was unable to divulge how much Tribecka would hand over because the negotiations were still under way but she said the money would be used to build affordable housing and to provide youth facilities both priorities identified in surveys of council tax payers.

But David Reeves, a long-time supporter of the Gaumont building, said there would be protesters prepared to stand in front of the bulldozers if the demolition went ahead.

"There are people among us who would do it," he said.

POGG is now attempting to get the building listed. They have to make an application to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and then English Heritage makes a judgement on the merits of the building.

Old post office needs purpose

The former post office in Calne town centre has been standing empty for three years, while customers continue to queue up in the rain at the new branch.

The post office in the High Street was closed and taken over by Newshops in Phelps Parade in 2000.

Newshops is a franchise, which has more than 13 post offices across the country. The staff of the former post office moved with the business to the new location in the shopping parade.

At the time town councillors complained about the move, fearing thousands of customers would be literally left out in the cold.

Concerns were also raised over the lack of disabled access and short-term parking.

There were proposals to turn the old post office into a Royal Mail sorting office but to date no plans have been forthcoming.

The post office had been at the High Street building since 1953 but now it stands abandoned and covered in scaffolding.

"I would like to see it become a post office again. It should be put to some use," said Calne town councillor Mercy Baggs. "At the moment it is a waste of valuable space. It could also make a lovely shop," she said.

"On busy days the post office in Phelps Parade now has queues of people waiting in the rain to get inside."

In Malmesbury, the town hall has been a thorn in the side of owners North Wiltshire District Council for the past five years. The council is eager to get rid of the Grade II Listed building but the fact that it costs a lot to maintain has hindered its plans.

A £1.3m scheme, which cost £100,000 and four years to develop, was thrown out in January because there was not enough community space included in the plan.

The district council then decided to give Malmesbury Town Council three months to come up with an alternative proposal.

An action group formed by the town council and headed by Abbey House Garden's owner Ian Pollard has come up with some ambitious ideas. Mr Pollard hopes an arts centre, underground parking and new visitor centre can be funded by lottery money and private investment.

But the three-month deadline ended this month and no firm action has been taken.

English Heritage has voiced concern that the latest plan will demolish the hall's interior.

And a district council report sent to the action group last week, recommends the building's fabric be retained.

Work on old courts caught up in red tape

DEVIZES' very own white elephant has been sitting at the entrance to the town centre, casting shame on the area for the last 16 years.

The Assize Courts building in Northgate Street is a prime example of how short-termism and political correctness can get out of hand and blight the community's treasured architectural gems.

Wiltshire County Council closed the courts building in the mid-1980s and sold it off to a local property development company, Davis and Dyke. The developers submitted a planning application to convert the building to flats but English Heritage objected, saying the scheme was not sympathetic enough.

A subsequent application for conversion to offices was passed, but by that time the property boom of the 1980s had turned to the slump of the 1990s and Davis and Dyke could not find a developer willing to team up with them.

The building, designed by Thomas Wyatt, who also designed the main building at Roundway Hospital in 1835, changed hands several times, ending up in the ownership of Gatewell Limited, an offshore company based in the United Arab Emirates.

The company acquired the property in 1999 and, although it has been granted planning permission to convert the building to flats, it has made no effort to carry out the scheme.

A spokesman for Jee Estates, their London-based agents, said that the owners are in discussion with English Heritage about grant aid for the conversion. English Heritage has replied that it is unlikely to provide that grant aid, and so the impasse continues and so does the deterioration of the building.

Kennet District Council's conservation officers are keeping a beady eye on its condition. Every few months they serve notices on the owners that they should make the building weatherproof and vandal proof.

Meanwhile, justice has been meted out at a temporary building across the road in Northgate Gardens. It is big enough for two courtrooms, an office, an interview room, toilets and retiring rooms for the magistrates, but it hardly reflects the majesty of the law.

Because the secure area for prisoners was condemned by an inspection team from the Home Office as not in accordance with the Human Rights Act, the courthouse cannot deal with cases involving prisoners or defendants who might be taken into custody, these cases have to be dealt with 25 miles away at Andover.

Many defendants fail to turn up,

simply because it is too complicated or too expensive to get to Andover.