Block Management in Melksham
Three watercourses in one flood warning area, and a single 95 metre defence wall.
Melksham's residents' management companies, RTM companies and freeholders can hand us the day-to-day running of a block, its accounts and its compliance. The town has the heaviest flood coverage of the towns covered in this part of Wiltshire, naming the Avon, Clackers Brook and South Brook, with 23 recorded flood outlines from 1925 to January 2014. Radon, by contrast, is in the lowest band across all fourteen squares.
What We Would Put First for a Block in Melksham
Check the Block Against the Named Streets
The Bristol Avon at Melksham warning area names New Broughton Road, Bradford Road, Lowbourne, Webbs Close, Northbrook Road and Roundpond among others. We would confirm at handover whether the block is inside it and record the result in the compliance file.
ComplianceBase Insurance on Boundaries, Not Names
Twenty-three flood outlines intersect the town, three of them from overtopped defences, yet two warning areas carrying Melksham's name do not reach it. We would base insurance disclosures on the block's actual position rather than on area titles.
InsuranceHold Reserves for Limited Defences
Against that flood history, the engineered defence is a single 95 metre wall on the Avon to a 50 year standard, with no named alleviation scheme. For a block in the warning area we would allow for flood recovery in reserve fund planning.
Reserve fundsObtain Consents in the Historic Core
134 of the town's 158 listed entries sit inside the 27.5 hectare conservation area. For a block in that core we would obtain the necessary consents before specifying external repairs or redecoration.
ConsentsManaging a Block in Melksham at a Glance
- Local authority
- Wiltshire Council
- Authority type
- Unitary
- Building control
- Wiltshire Council Building Control
- County
- Wiltshire
- Fire and rescue service
- Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service
- Water and sewerage
- Wessex Water
- Setting
- Inland
What It Costs to Move a Block in Melksham to Us
Management is a fixed annual fee, quoted for the building and agreed before we start. We take no commission and no third-party incentives, so the fee is the whole of what we earn from the building. Taking a block on carries a one-off start-up fee, set by size:
| Block size | Fee |
|---|---|
| Start-up fee, up to 10 units | £420.00 |
| Start-up fee, up to 25 units | £540.00 |
| Start-up fee, 50 units and above | £660.00 |
Taken from our published Additional Services price list, PBM Form #01-27 rev.6, effective 23 June 2025. All fees quoted are inclusive of VAT. See the full price list and how a handover works.
Three Watercourses, and Almost No Engineered Defence
Melksham has the heaviest flood coverage of the towns covered in this part of Wiltshire. The mid Bristol Avon alert covers 11.51 per cent of the built-up area, the highest alert coverage of any of them, and the Bristol Avon at Melksham warning area covers 4.57 per cent, again the highest warning coverage. That warning area names three separate watercourses and their streets: the Avon at New Broughton Road, Old Broughton Road and Bradford Road, the Clackers Brook at Lowbourne, Webbs Close and Bath Road, and the South Brook at Northbrook Road, Southbrook Road and Roundpond. The upper Avon alert clips a further 0.86 per cent of the northern edge. Two nearby warning areas name Melksham in their titles without reaching the town, one of them starting downstream at Challymead Bridge, which is exactly the sort of thing a name-based search gets wrong. Twenty-three accepted flood outlines intersect the town, running from 1925 to January 2014, three of them attributed to overtopping of defences rather than simple channel capacity, and the largest covering 29.7 hectares in May 1932. Against all that, the engineered defence is almost nothing: a single 95 metre wall on the Avon to a 50 year standard, with everything else recorded as natural high ground. No named alleviation scheme is published.
Two Melksham-Named Wards Are Not in Melksham
Aggregating the census output areas inside the built-up area gives 7,851 households with 977 in flats, 12.4 per cent, made up of 787 in purpose-built blocks, 79 in a converted or shared house, 43 in another converted building and 68 over commercial premises. The ward picture needs care: three Melksham-named wards sit wholly inside the town, Melksham Without North and Shurnhold is about two thirds inside, and two further wards, Melksham Without West and Rural and Bowerhill, have no output areas inside the built-up area at all despite their names, so they should not be counted as Melksham.
158 Listed Entries and No Grade I at All
One conservation area, recorded as designated in 1981 though only the year is published, covering 5.42 per cent of the built-up area. At 27.5 hectares it is the smallest historic core of the towns covered in this part of Wiltshire. An appraisal is recorded as existing but no adoption date could be established, and the council's own mapping carries no designation date for it.
158 entries on the National Heritage List fall inside the built-up area, and not one of them is Grade I. Two are Grade II* and 156 Grade II, with 134 of them inside the conservation area. Melksham is the only town covered in this part of Wiltshire with no Grade I building at all, which sets it apart from Bradford-on-Avon five miles away, where there are eight.
Every One of Fourteen Squares Reads the Lowest Band
The only town covered on this site that reads a single uniform class across its entire built-up area. All fourteen one-kilometre squares are in the lowest band, where the published wording is that all parts of the square are in the lowest band of radon potential with under 1 per cent of homes at or above the action level, and the advice given is that radon measurement is not advised. There is no square of class 2 or above anywhere in Melksham.
That is national advice about the ground, not about the building. The same map excludes basements, cellars and underground spaces at every band, so an enclosed plant room, undercroft or lower-ground flat is still worth a look even here, and whatever is found belongs with the compliance record.
A Joint Neighbourhood Plan with 49 Local Green Spaces
Decided under the Wiltshire Core Strategy, adopted 20 January 2015. The emerging Wiltshire Local Plan reached examination in November 2024 but was withdrawn on 22 May 2026, and its replacement is not expected to be adopted before 30 April 2029. The council states that the 2015 Core Strategy's policies are not automatically out of date despite its plan period having run to 2026, and will continue to guide development. The Joint Melksham Neighbourhood Plan, shared between the town council and Melksham Without Parish Council, went to referendum on 31 July 2025 and was carried by 1,903 votes to 239 on a turnout of 10.79 per cent. It runs to 2038, carries 21 bespoke local policies and protects 49 local green spaces, and it builds on an earlier joint plan adopted in 2021. The date the council formally made it is not published. There is no Article 4 direction, checked against all 48 in the county.
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Melksham Questions
Which Neighbourhood Plan Applies in Melksham?
The Joint Melksham Neighbourhood Plan, shared between the town council and Melksham Without Parish Council. It went to referendum on 31 July 2025 and was carried by 1,903 votes to 239 on a turnout of 10.79 per cent. It runs to 2038, carries 21 local policies and protects 49 local green spaces. The date the council formally made it is not published.
Is the Wiltshire Core Strategy Still in Force for Our Block?
Yes. Melksham is decided under the Wiltshire Core Strategy, adopted 20 January 2015. The emerging Wiltshire Local Plan was withdrawn on 22 May 2026 and its replacement is not expected before 30 April 2029. The council states that the Core Strategy's policies are not automatically out of date and will continue to guide development. There is no Article 4 direction in the town.
Should We Test Our Communal Areas for Radon?
The published advice for Melksham is that radon measurement is not advised. All fourteen one-kilometre squares over the built-up area are in the lowest band, where under 1 per cent of homes are at or above the action level, and there is no square of class 2 or above anywhere in the town.
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