REVIEW OF THE YEAR: A look back at Salisbury's top stories of 2023

This is part one, covering January to April.  

January

• SCORES of mourners attended a ‘ghost village’ left deserted since World War II for the funeral of one of its last known residents. Raymond Nash was laid to rest in Imber, on Salisbury Plain, where he was born after an absence of almost 80 years. It was an exceptionally rare ceremony and only took place after the Ministry of Defence gave permission.

Raymond Nash’s funeral in Imber. Photo by David Clarke/Solent News & Photo Agency

• Work began on the building of 640 homes on Netherhampton Road. The plans were given the green light in 2020, and were heavily criticised. As part of the development, Bovis Homes says it will spend more than £13million in the local community, including on education, the Salisbury Transport Strategy, a new doctors’ surgery and local air quality projects.
• Residents pleaded for more support after heaving flooding in Britford village. Lower Road residents installed defences, with some using slate tiles to break the waves and pool water pumps to get the water out, and some properties had to be evacuated.
• A fire ripped through a thatched cottage in West Grimstead. The husband and wife who had lived the cottage for 20 years evacuated the building and sheltered in a neighbour’s house during the rescue operation.

February

• THE Hair Extension Cave set up a relief fund project to help survivors of the earthquake in Turkey with some people still buried beneath layers of rubble. Owner of the salon on Silver Street Molly Cook cancelled clients so they could all focus on sorting through the donations received and had turned an upper floor into a sorting room. Employee Nazan Ketemcimen took deliveries to London as the Turkish airlines were offering free cargo flights for equipment. 
• THE man who killed Freddie Fontete-Jones in one punch was sentenced to nine years in prison for manslaughter. Pool, 25, hit 23-year-old Freddie with such force he fell back and was knocked unconscious, after a scuffle in the early hours of February 20, 2022.​​

Connor Pool (Image: Wiltshire Police)

• Salisbury residents were advised that the City Hall would still open as an entertainment venue following the close of its role as a vaccination centre on Saturday, January 8 with the NHS formally vacating the building by mid-February.  Wiltshire Council stated they were looking for a suitable third-party organisation to bring a new lease of life to the venue with leader of Wiltshire Council, Councillor Richard Clewer, telling the Journal that invitations to tender would be open “imminently”.
• A special parish meeting was called to discuss the controversial council tax increase set by the Salisbury City Council. The motion was to establish whether Salisbury residents supported a limit on any proposed increase in the parish precept by five per cent per year and whether an administration wanted to increase the precept by more than five per cent. A parish poll would then be required. 

The parish meeting in Salisbury Guildhall

• The owner of a city bar told to close described the decision by planning officers as 'point pushing for the sake of it.' Progress Bar on Endless Street had been set up to provide a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community with the project driven forward by Councillor Caroline Corbin. It closed on February 17.
• The Boathouse Pub closed in February, just five months after reopening. Owners blamed costs and footfall, and said it was “a very difficult decision.”

March

• A MAGNET fisher caused mayhem when he discovered suspected historic munitions in the River Avon close to the Fisherton Recreation Ground on March 2. Police cordons were set up across the city due to the discoveries made by Paul D’Arcy. On March 6, he also found a live grenade in the same river near to Waitrose. Paul who had been magnet fishing for six years was known internationally for having discovered the gun believed to have been used to assassinate the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. 
• THE Princess of Wales braved freezing temperatures and snow to help administer first aid to a wounded soldier, as part of an exercise on Salisbury Plain. In the drill, members of the 1st Battalion Irish Guards were on foot patrol when they came under fire from an enemy.

The Princess of Wales at the Salisbury Plain Training Area

• SCORES of people attended a special service to mark the fifth anniversary of the Novichok poisonings. The ceremony was held at St Thomas’s Church and followed on from the Annual Charter Service, which is held at the Guildhall every year to celebrate the signing of the Salisbury Charter in 1227 and the links between Council, Church and the wider community

Salisbury's Annual Charter Service

• LAWYERS acting on behalf of the government defended the “exceptional” disclosure delays in the Russian-state Salisbury poisonings inquiry, saying sensitive information was found in more than 1,000 documents. The counsel to the Dawn Sturgess inquiry, Andrew O’Connor KC, said there is “still some way to go” and his team would not be ready for substantive hearings untilthe “middle or end of next year.
• MEMBERS of the city council’s planning committee opposed plans to build an Asda on London Road. Councillors previously supported the plans to build a supermarket, petrol station and coffee drive-thru on the green space near Hampton Park Roundabout but changed their minds after reading a new report which revealed the environmental damage it would cause.
• SALISBURY woke up to a blanket of snow in March. Some schools were closed but disruption was generally kept to a minimum. 

Snow in Salisbury (Image: Spencer Mulholland)

April

• THE Poultry Cross reopened following repair work. The Grade I listed structure was damaged in 2022 by a car that crashed into it while the driver was fleeing from police and repair works started in October 2022. Brandon Luke Gamblin, 20, of Chamberlayne Road, Eastleigh, was charged with a string of driving offences after the incident.

• A NEW ‘chophouse’ opened in the heart of the city. Hixon took over the former Wilding restaurant premises, following a nine-week refurbishment.
• THE Prince of Wales led tributes to the “inspirational” co-founder of Help for Heroes, Bryn Parry, following his death in April. Prince William and the Duke of Sussex both honoured Mr Parry’s memory last week, after he died following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Mr Parry was from Downton. Mr Parry, from Downton, was one of the UK’s best known countryside cartoonists and he founded the charity, which supports veterans and their families in the UK, with his wife Emma in 2007.
• FEWER than four per cent of the electorate voted in the parish poll. It was held to decide whether the people of Salisbury would support a five per cent cap on future increases to the Salisbury City Council precept and a parish consultation if any proposed increase is larger than five per cent. 992 people voted yes, 206 people voted no, and four people spoiled their ballot papers. It was a turn out of roughly 3.92 per cent, out of an electorate 30,698.