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Retiring Town Mayor Cllr Phil Keeble gives thanks after successful year

15 May 2024

The retiring Mayor, Cllr Phil Keeble, has passed on his thanks for the privilege of his year in office as well as wishing his successor Cllr Stacie Allensby good luck in her new role as Mayor of Warminster this coming year.

Cllr Stacie Allensby was unanimously elected as Chairman of the Council and Town Mayor for 2024-25 at a Full Council meeting on Monday 13^th May.

Cllr Keeble said: “I would like to thank councillors for allowing me the privilege of my year in office. I have thoroughly enjoyed my year, visiting many organisations and charities and hopefully helping them to raise awareness and funds.

“A year ago, at the start of my term, I stated that my goals were:

“1. To focus on regeneration of the economy and town centre – and we have made a good start with the hugely successful street market and working closely with the Warminster Business Network on other issues.

“2. To finalise the Climate Change Action Plan – this has been achieved and our focus now changes to implementation of the plan.

“3. Completion of the Neighbourhood Plan – excellent progress has been made but due to a change in legislation, we have now decided to include the process for site allocation for housing in the Plan, which will extend this project by some nine months.

“It has been a busy year and we have achieved so much, including:

Solar panels have been installed on many council buildings reducing our energy bills
Development and adoption of a Community Resilience Plan
Development and adoption of a Strategic Plan for 2024-2029
Development and adoption of a Climate Change Action Plan
Record numbers attended a new format Christmas lights switch-on event with all-day entertainment, combined with a new street market and the civic centre market. In partnership with the Warminster Business Network, we now have four planned street markets every year – the spring market has already occurred and was a huge success
A new event of Pumpkins in the Park for Halloween celebrations
Restoration of the Copheap memorial from Dewey Trust funds
£15,000 allocated for free activities for young people over the summer including canoeing and tennis
£30,000 allocated from CIL funds to Warminster Football Club to upgrade their floodlights to LED
A new under 5’s multi-play area in the Lake Pleasure Grounds
The Lake Pleasure Grounds continue to be awarded Green Flag status
A hugely successful Spring in the Park
Hosting a delegation from Warminster, Pennsylvania, USA to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of twinning between the two towns
And, at last, a solution that will see the scaffolding being removed and the building at 3 High Street being demolished.

“Finally, I would like to thank the officers of the council for their hard work and support to make everything possible and thank Cllr Allensby for her support as my deputy and wish her good luck as Mayor in the coming year.”