PROPOSALS FOR TISBURY PARISH TO PURCHASE A PLOT Of LAND Opposite the Railway Station.

‘To alleviate the parking problems on the road below the Railway Station, to assure the use of the field for the Carnival Fair Ground, the Village bonfire, other Village Events. To enhance the Visual approach to the Village by Road and Rail, to provide a river walk with picnic benches.’

Is the proposal that Tisbury Parish alone buys this site, or would it be a joint purchase by Tisbury and West Tisbury Parish Councils? How large is this site and has it been professionally valued as to its worth as waste land for that is all that it should currently be valued at. There wouldn’t be the slightest chance of obtaining other planning permission on a piece of land liable to flooding.

There is a parking problem on the road below the railway station. Tisbury Station attracts out of village Commuters who use the station, some come from afar to avail themselves of our free parking. I have no wish to contribute to the provision of further parking places, which will attract even more Commuters to Tisbury Station. It isn’t just a matter of purchasing the land, but too of making it into an effective Car Parking area. Is the Parking to be free there on, or will it be regulated, if so how is that regulation to be enforced?

There is only a parking problem on the road below the Railway Station, because a previous incarnation of Tisbury Parish Council failed to regulate it. Our then Parish Council was then consulted as to where the Yellow Lines should be painted. Immediately after they had been painted the then Parish Council sought to amend them. The Responsible Authority was willing so to do providing Tisbury Parish Council paid for the new scheme. Well the Village wasn’t willing to pay, so it never happened.

One understands that Tisbury is likely to have use of some thirty acres of Leasehold Land, arising from the development of The Hindon Lane Site, and have some £400,000 of R2 Funding beside. The Village has use of the waterside Stubbles area, which may possibly be the responsibility of West Tisbury Parish Council? We have Riparian use of two banks of the Nadder, along the length of the Football Field, and to the South an existing Footpath up so far as Chicksgrove Quarry. Well I live there about and seldom see it used other than by the footpath club. Why on the earth do we need to have a picnic area adjacent to a Car Park, within the vicinity of the Waterloo to Exeter Main Line Railway? Can not ‘other Village events’ happen on the Football Field? Can they not happen about the Nadder School, or on the afore mentioned thirty acres?

There are better things to spend our money on. Tisbury needs a proper ‘All Singing and Dancing’ Village Hall. The Nadder Hall is in the wrong place, and is shunned, by those who might use it if better located. Its financial viability depends on it being partly financed by the Plymouth Bretheren, however they are planning to leave the Village in favour of Wilton. Music Cafes are very enterprising, but how many of us can afford to buy tickets for events at £26 a head, and even if we can how often are we going to do it?

I am something of a new comer to the village of Tisbury, but in the near thirty years I have lived and raised a family here, I have never seen such frenetic expenditure as recently evidenced by our more recent un-polled for Parish Councils.

Thank you Parish Councillors one and all, but if through no fault of yours, none of you has had to stand for election for near two decades, how do you know what Tisbury Residents want ? Ours is a Village and should not be a re-manifestation of the places from whence we all came.

We had housing and work for local people, thriving Pubs and Shops, a sufficiency of Parish Councillors, Church Congregants, NHS Dentistry for all, we even had buses. Have we traded all this in for Local Societies and expelled the indigenous workforce.

Does Tisbury know where its future lies, or are we all to content to adopt the “Après moi le déluge”, stance?