Residents are set to form a new group to explore the possibility of creating a community green space at a High Street site next to St Lawrence Chapel.
Organisers hope to establish the Chapel Green Association and recruit members from the local community at a meeting on Wednesday 29th April at the Wellbeing Hub.
Plans to redevelop the site, at 3 High Street, into a new shop and ten flats were submitted to Wiltshire Council in 2024 and are currently awaiting a decision.
After the previous building was demolished, some residents called for the site to be retained as an open green space to ‘enhance’ the view of the adjacent St Lawrence Chapel.
The group understands the owner may be open to selling the site and is hoping to raise funds to purchase the land through donors. Contributors would become members of the association and would receive their money back if the purchase is not completed.
“The aim of the meeting is to inform, answer questions and recruit members,” said project campaigner Maggy Daniell. “Then we’ll have a quick inaugural meeting at the end in order to be officially established and go from there.
“Warminster is unusual in that the actual centre doesn’t have a green. It has a very long street of shops in buildings of all shapes, sizes and ages – but no vegetation and not a tree in sight. It needs a green heart, a tranquil place where people can just sit and enjoy nature, set back from the noise and fumes.
“The word ‘community’ is important because it’s up to us to make it happen. We have a good precedent in the chapel itself. It was bought back by the people, 20 years after the Tudors appropriated it, and it is still independent. Those 16th-century people of Warminster made it happen.”
For more information, visit chapelgreenproject.org.uk or attend the meeting at 7pm on Wednesday 29th April.
