Councillors bid a sad farewell to West Wiltshire District Council at a final full council meeting on Wednesday.

The offices in Bradley Road, Trowbridge, played host to the last council meeting that district councillors will attend before the authority is merged with four others to become Wiltshire Council on April 1.

Council leader Graham Payne, who has served on the authority for 33 years, said councillors showed a united front for the end of an era meeting.

“There was quite a sad atmosphere in the air with councillors signing off the last ever West Wiltshire District Council meeting after 35 years of service.

“However, despite the sadness that councillors felt we are looking forward to the Wiltshire Council in a positive light.

“It was a fairly low key evening with minutes being signed off and we were basically just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.

“All the councillors attended apart from Phil Seager who had work commitments and Terry Chivers who was away on business.”

He said despite district councillors trying to look forward to the new unitary authority, they cannot help but wonder why the move is happening especially in such an economic downturn.

He also thanked the Wiltshire Times for all of the coverage it had given to the district council, good or bad.

“On behalf of all of the councillors I would like to thank the Wiltshire Times for being such a good champion reporting on West Wiltshire issues, not always to our liking, but in the public’s interest. ”