Answering Yes or No to the proposed Campus is an over simplification of Tisbury’s need. ( One notes that the Campus is intended to serve surrounding areas too) I write as but a resident of Tisbury Parish.

Tisbury already has a multiplicity of Village and Church Halls, and other premises which the Parish either owns or just has use of. There is the Elizabeth Hall, The Victoria Memorial Hall, The Hinton Church Hall, The Methodist Church Hall , not to forget the probably financially unviable, Nadder Hall. Apart from the last named all these Halls are well located to cater for some of the needs of Tisbury Parish, the Hinton Hall being especially convenient for West Tisbury Parishioners. There is too the Tisbury Social Club, The Cricket Pavilion, The Bowls Club and the Old Court Building being used by the Youth Club.

Is our problem that there are too many inadequate Halls for hire, all of which need Heating and Servicing. It would be a fine thing if all such accommodation, was located together with the Library, under one roof at a location convenient for the residents of both Tisbury and West Tisbury.

REGRETTABLY THE NADDER SCHOOL PREMISES IS NOT THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM FOR IT IS WRONGLY LOCATED. THE PROPOSAL OF A BUS LINK FROM THE VILLAGE PROVES THE CASE.

Apart from being too far off the centre of Tisbury and West Tisbury, its access is appalling. The Questionnaire mentions fourteen other parishes and others, which would be availing themselves of the Campus . What of the traffic flow through the Churchill Estate and the yet to be constructed Hindon Lane Estate? Heaven knows why Planners acquiesced to the suggestion that there be a road passing right through both Estates, thereby imperilling hundreds of homes and their children. Was it to relieve the existing pressure on the few houses fronting lower Hindon Lane? Those of us who buy houses alongside a road must expect passing traffic, We get plenty of that and no on road stopping let alone parking on the lane I and others share.

Surely what Tisbury and West Tisbury need is a purpose built Community Centre and Hall at some Central Location, such as is the Parish owned land that currently accommodates not only The Tisbury United Football Team but too the Tisbury Social Club. It would have the advantage of easy access to the Parish’s newly acquired Car Park and its Loos. (The former facility we are advised being provided by the ‘Courtesy of Tisbury Parish Council’ One takes it the PC means by Courtesy of the Residents of Tisbury who will be paying for the maintenance of both it and the Loos?) Such a Hall might accommodate the Bowls Club where it backs onto its Green and the Children’s Play area .Terracing alongside the Nadder River might front an integral all Tisbury Social Club. Possibly the Football club might be re- sited onto the thirty acres of amenity ground which Tisbury Parish Council is soon to have use of, adjoining the Hindon Lane Development. That Leased land apart; some hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of R2 funding will be coming our way from the Developer of the new Estate. Hopefully the Parish Council wont fritter the money away on the like of the Gambia Egg Scheme, or The Tanganyika Ground Nut Scheme or a new and better ecologically unfriendly compost heap. ‘Marjorie’ wouldn’t want that.

There is too another objection to The Nadder Campus. Surely this existing school would better house an extension to the adjoined C of E Primary School, regardless of the School’s previous rejection of the idea. Circumstances have changed. There are to be ninety new houses on Hindon Lane, and more likely than not, another sixty at the Station Works site, if not more on the adjoined work sites. The Coalition’s new Planning Regime makes such non commercial use of the land a probability. Where then will all the new children go to Primary School ?

Yielding to the temptation of the current ‘Mount Nadder’ Campus Proposal would be the easier option, but surely it wouldn’t be in Tisbury’s better interest so to do. Inexplicably one is minded of that quote, from I recall not where,

The Devil taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them’

Temptation didn’t work then, so hopefully it wont work now. 31 October 2011 22:50