[for green, visualise perhaps a montage of photographs depicting all that we treasure in Tisbury]

 TISBURY PARISH PLAN

Draft as at 27/03/07

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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FOREWORD
[Drafted as if the Parish Councils had decided to adopt the plan]

Today, Tisbury’s recorded history extends over nearly 1250 years.

People love the village: for its friendliness, for its vigour, for its setting, for its river, for its narrow roads, for its railway, for its amenities, for its history, and for its not being on a main road to anywhere.

These qualities, and many others, evolved without at any time someone writing a Parish Plan. Why do we need one now? 

We believe the answer lies, quite simply, in how best to deal with the pressures of modern life; some of these are social, some are commercial and many are governmental. 

Indeed, Government at every level seeks to impose changes to the way we live and not all of these changes are welcome. In Tisbury’s case, some of the things that we love are under threat and those that we wish to improve fail to engage attention. 

We need, therefore, to orchestrate our response to these threats and inadequacies. 

The Parish Plan initiative, launched by the Countryside Alliance in 2001, is a way forward. Exploiting the initiative, we can declare our concerns in a form that will reach the many organisations that may be able to help and, more importantly, suggest how that help might be delivered. In the past six years, well over a thousand parishes have participated in the scheme. Now it is our turn. 

Accordingly, the two Parish Councils are delighted to endorse this, our own Parish Plan, as a significant contribution to our agenda in the years to come. 

We hope the Plan will influence policy at all levels of local government. However, the extent to which it does, and thus changes behaviour, will be its proof. Some of those changes will have to be our own. 

On behalf of both Parish Councils, we thank all those involved in the preparation and production of the Plan, for their time and for their hard work, including the Steering Group, our mentors from Salisbury District Council, our local advisors and, most importantly, the communities of the two parishes.  

Signed and dated  

Chairmen of Tisbury Parish Councils 

VISION 

The people of Tisbury have supported the preparation of this Plan with great enthusiasm. They have attended public meetings in encouraging numbers and much debate has followed. From the earlier meetings, we prepared and delivered a questionnaire to all households in the village. This too generated a very encouraging response, one from which a clear vision has now emerged: 

Tisbury people have a strong commitment to the future of the village - they want it to thrive as a prosperous, happy and attractive place in which to live and to work

They want the present level of services protected and enhanced, and the High Street to flourish

They want any further development, whether for housing or employment, to be small scale, well designed, and in keeping with the village environment and surrounding countryside

Above all, they want Tisbury to remain a community, a village and not become an urban settlement.

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

The medieval parishes of Tisbury and West Tisbury lie between Salisbury and Shaftesbury and between the A303 and the A30. Still largely unseen on approach, the two villages are served by a web of unclassified roads suitable only in parts for other than light traffic.   

The National Census of 2001 shows the population of the two parishes to be 2667 of whom 18 % were below the age of 18, 52 % were between 18 and 65, and 23 % were over 65.  At that time, 1874 people were in employment and 480 had retired. Of the 1157 households registered as occupied, 65% were owner-occupied and 35% were rented. Though now out of date, these figures indicate the size and make-up of Tisbury as it is today. A comprehensive Profile of Tisbury is available as a separate supplement to this Plan. 

The Plan has been prepared by a Steering Group comprising volunteers drawn from the community, some of whom are permanent members and some of whom have been co-opted for specific tasks. An audit trail provides the integrity of the preparatory process.

The trail include the original written comments from members of the community, their responses to the questionnaire, further responses t open days, through to the text of the Plan itself.  

The process adopted by the Steering Group has been to identify the concerns of the community, analyse the issues associated with these concerns, and then draw conclusions. These conclusions lead to the various aims that the Plan highlights and to the ways forward validated with the public.  

People's responses to the various public meetings, surveys and questionnaire focused on eleven main aspects of life in Tisbury. Not in any order of priority: 

·                    Preserving and where necessary improving medical services. People's concerns centre on the out-of-hours service, emergency call-out, hospital visit transport and the lack of an NHS dentist and optician

·                    Ensuring the survival of a fully manned local fire service The community recognises the value of having its own fire station to provide emergency response in case of fire and as a first response to medical emergencies.

·                    Decreasing police presence and increasing anti-social behaviour. This apparent contradiction worries people and they are concerned for the future of the police station, policing in general and a perceived increase in crime.

·                    How best to preserve and improve the amenities which Tisbury enjoys. Concerns focus mainly on preserving the viability of the Sports Centre, improving the outdoor swimming pool and ensuring that everything is done to provide worthwhile and challenging activities for the young people of Tisbury. A need is also identified, one that has been reinforced during the production of this Plan, that suggests communications within Tisbury can and should be improved

·                    The loss of secondary schooling in Tisbury whilst the population continues to increase The perceived consequence is increased busing of children to school and pressure on the inadequate road system. It also transpires that local schools are unaware of plans for large new housing developments in their locality.

·                    Preserving and increasing the shops in the High Street and attracting new business enterprises to Tisbury to provide work for all. The Tisbury community values its High Street greatly and seeks to arrest any decline in the number of shops and enterprises. As important, people see the need to provide adequate and appropriate business premises to attract new employers.

·                    The ever-increasing traffic burden on a very rural road system If two people meet in Tisbury, it is likely that they will be talking about the traffic. People are concerned about the speed of driving, the volume of traffic and the size of vehicles.

·                    The availability of public transport The community recognises that it is lucky to have its own rail station in Tisbury but has expressed frustration at the lack of co-ordination between bus and rail services in Salisbury and in Tisbury. There is also a major concern about the amount of car parking available in the area of the station as the number of rail users from outlying areas continues to increase.

·                    Protection of the open countryside and AONB, the rate and size of new building development and the type of new housing People feel strongly that more affordable housing is needed for Tisbury residents and new commercial premises are required to attract employers but they do not want more urbanisation or new large housing estates. These views lead to the need for some form of declared long-term incremental house building policy for Tisbury, by Tisbury.

·                    Commitment to doing anything possible to improve our environment There is lots of commitment and passion in pursuit of environment friendly initiatives, mainly focusing on energy-saving, recycling waste products, and recycling unwanted but useful items of clothing, furniture and the like

·                    The Plan goes nowhere without a delivery system or some form of Governance. The Plan is owned by the Parish Councils of Tisbury and West Tisbury. With the assistance of a properly constituted Steering Group, the Councils will provide the initiative and drive to realize the Plan in detail together with the community, appropriate partners and stakeholders.

 INTRODUCTION 
[This section will be updated as we move through the final stages of the plan’s preparation]

2. INTRODUCTION 

2.1 BACKGROUND 

As part of the national Market and Coastal Town Initiative, and with the help of a £5,000 grant from the European Social Fund, Salisbury District Council invited the parishes of Tisbury¹ and West Tisbury¹ to write a Parish Plan. This document is a draft of the first phase of that Plan.  

The purpose of the Plan is three-fold: firstly, to present the views of residents on those aspects of the village they value, and would like to protect; secondly, to highlight aspects that villagers would like to see improved; and, thirdly, to suggest ways of dealing with the issues that these views raise. 

At a public meeting in January 2005, and with the subsequent endorsement of the Parish Councils, a steering group of local volunteers came together to research the views of residents and to prepare the Plan. The group has since co-opted other volunteers for specific tasks. 

We have called the process of preparing and realizing the Plan: ‘TISVIS’. It is an evolutionary process. 

Note 1: For readers unfamiliar with the parishes of Tisbury and West Tisbury, a summary of our separately published profile is included at Annexe B. Readers may also wish to consult a recent publication by the Wiltshire Strategic Board entitled: ‘A Community fit for our children - a Profile of Tisbury Community Area and its villages’. 

2.2 THE TISVIS PROCESS (Phase One) - Preparation 

a) How we got to where we are 

Our first public event was a stall at the Church Fete, in June 2005. Here we promoted the concept of the Parish Plan and the public Awareness Day that was to follow. Visitors to the stall were also invited to offer their early comments on the aspects of Tisbury they liked or did not like. 

Secondly, in early July 2005, we held a public Awareness Day. We offered visitors a copy of the village profile that we had written and then invited them to comment on what they wanted to protect in the Parishes and what they wanted to improve. Over 400 residents from Tisbury and neighbouring villages participated. 

A detailed analysis of the visitors’ comments and the issues they raised followed and, from this analysis, we prepared a questionnaire for circulation in the two parishes to all residents eligible to vote. We also offered the questionnaire to resident teenagers, many of whom welcomed the involvement. The population of the two parishes is some 2700. Altogether, we received 1426 completed questionnaires representing over 70% of households. 

Using software developed by a member of the Steering Group, we analysed the responses to the questionnaire by age group, by gender and by parish. A summary of this analysis is at Annexe C. Each questionnaire also contained a box into which we invited respondents to add their own freeform comments. These, too, were analysed. 

From these analyses, we were able to identify  the key issues raised and how perhaps they might be dealt with. Unsurprisingly, we found that some of the emerging aims could be dealt with quite quickly, others would take longer and some might be beyond our reach. 

We held two public meetings in March 2007. At the first of these (10/3), we invited visitors to agree or disagree with our suggested aims and the ways forward for dealing with them, and to add further suggestions of their own. At the second meeting (22/3), visitors included a range of specially invited stakeholders. Here, too, we sought more suggestions but we also asked those present to give a priority to the various ways forward and, in particular, to indicate if they could help specifically with them. 

Much of the output from the meetings has been incorporated in the sections that follow, and in Annexe A. Where incorporation has not been possible, we have included the suggestions at the end of the Annexe, for consideration at Phase Two (see below). 

Note 2: In this context, we define ‘stakeholder’ as any person, group or organisation that can ease, or obstruct, the protection and improvement of Tisbury 

b) Where we are now 

At this current phase of development, the Plan is in two respects a draft. Firstly, it features a Schedule of Actions for local stakeholders and others to consider and respond to and, secondly, it is a basis for general comment and discussion. The Plan has now been given to the Salisbury District Council. 

c) What happens next?  

Over a period of eight weeks, the District Council will solicit responses from various organisations, generally members of the South Wiltshire Strategic Alliance (SWSA). These organisations may be able to endorse, assist or even sponsor the achievement of some of the aims.  

Each organisation will have its own set of plans, of course, and will have consulted their own communities while preparing them. It is the bringing together of these many plans that we hope, in time, will deliver the protection and improvement of the village to which we all aspire. The diagram at Annexe G shows some of this complexity.    

The Plan and its schedule of actions is also about to be given to local stakeholders for their comments. Responses from these and from the SWSA will, as appropriate, be incorporated within the Plan to form the penultimate draft. This penultimate draft will in turn pass to Salisbury District Council who will validate the process and procedures that we have used to produce the Plan.  

After validation, the final draft of the Plan will be delivered to the Parish Councils for their adoption. After adoption, we will add local scenes and quotations to the text of the Plan. This final, illustrated, version will be printed and published in a form for Salisbury District Council, and other members of the SWSA, to endorse. After endorsement, a widely circulated newsletter will describe the main features of the Plan and how the Plan is then to be realized. 

2.3 THE TISVIS PROCESS (Phase Two) - Realization   

Our expectation is that, if members of the Parish Councils adopt the Plan, they will themselves take the early steps towards dealing with specific issues. However, because the substance of the Plan is considerable, the Parish Councils may well decide, as a very first step, to appoint an agent such as the Tisvis Steering Group to carry forward elements of the programme of work. We discuss this possibility more fully in the section on Governance (section 13). 

This process will take time and we recognise and, indeed hope, that during this time, many spontaneous initiatives will come to life that are quite independent of any influence the Plan may have had. 

2.4 INTEGRITY OF THE TISVIS PROCESS 

To demonstrate the integrity of the process, we have preserved an audit trail. This extends from the original post-it comments at the Awareness Day through the responses to the questionnaire to the current phase of the Plan. The full chronology of the process is at Annexe E. Our terms of reference are at Annexe F, and a diagram of the process we have used is at Annexe D. 

2.5 SCOPE 

We have limited the scope of the Plan to what we believe should be achievable. 

2.6 STRUCTURE 

We have grouped the issues, with no particular priority, into eleven sections as follows:  

Key services:             Medical, Fire and Ambulance, Policing
Activities:                 Clubs and Amenities, Education, Local Business
Travel:                        Roads, Footways and Parking, Public Transport
Village Fabric:            New Building, Environment
Delivery:                    Governance 

Each section comprises four elements: 

THE ISSUES 

3. MEDICAL SERVICES 

3.1 SUMMARY OF PUBLIC RESPONSES 

a) Awareness Day  

Medical (5 comments)

3 appreciate the medical facilities; 1 worries about the time to be taken for an ambulance to reach the village; 1 seeks a higher proportion of NHS dental patients being treated in the Tisbury practice

 b) Questionnaire 

 c) Questionnaire (freeform comments) 

 d) Community Validation Days 

- Establish a ‘well-man’ clinic [for future consideration, see Annexe A]
- Help patients to decide for themselves whether the type of care they require needs to be out-of-hours treatment

3.2 ISSUES 

a) In general 

Tisbury is fortunate to enjoy excellent medical services, for which respondents to the questionnaire show a gratifying 87% level of satisfaction.

b) Non-urgent patient transport services 

Non-urgent patient transport services have changed greatly in recent years.  Financial cutbacks have reduced the free Hospital Car Service to the carrying of patients only in the following circumstances:

Ambulances are still available for the wheelchair or bed-bound. Other patients must now arrange their own transport. Patients in receipt of certain benefits may reclaim their travel costs from the hospital as concessionary fare pass passengers but this appears not extend to the Tisbus scheme.

In all other circumstances, patients rely increasingly on such services as the Link Scheme and Tisbus, services that are always vulnerable to reductions in funding and shortage of volunteers.  

AIM 1: Improve public transport to local hospitals 

Ways Forward: 

Explore scale of problem and options for additional funding of transport to local hospitals including:

c) Out-of-hours medical services 

In recent years, national changes to out-of-hours medical services have been extensive. Local GPs opted out of the original 24-hour care commitment and the local Primary Care Trust became responsible, in their place. Our current service is commissioned by Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, and provided by Great Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust. 

The patient, or someone on their behalf, telephones their usual doctor’s surgery number. The call is diverted to the service and the caller states the circumstances to the duty receptionist.  A service doctor then returns the call as soon as possible to decide whether:  

Nevertheless, a significant 35% of respondents to the questionnaire remain dissatisfied with the out-of-hours service. We are uncertain how important an issue this is for the residents of Tisbury and other parishes within the catchment area, and the degree overloading of the out-of-hours service.

AIM 2: Improve ‘out-of-hours’ medical cover 

Ways Forward: 

d) Access to NHS Dental services 

The local situation reflects the national position where very few dentists choose to work for the NHS. Salisbury Primary Care Trust operates an emergency service but continuing NHS care ought to be available locally. The local situation reflects the position nationally with very few dentists prepared to work for the NHS.  A service nearer to home means less time travelling, lower costs, lower pollution and generally less stress.  

AIM 3: Obtain a local NHS dental service 

Ways Forward: 

e) Access to Optician service 

Shaftesbury, Gillingham, Warminster, Sturminster Newton, Salisbury and Amesbury all have opticians working with the NHS.  Tisbury, Mere and Wilton have not.  It is a commercial decision for an optician to open a practice. Some opticians will visit housebound patients but will not have the range of equipment that would otherwise be available. Another option is public transport. The Link Scheme and Tisbus are available as are buses to Shaftesbury and Salisbury, and trains to Salisbury.  Urgent appointments with opticians are rare.  

As with a dental service, a service nearer to home means less time travelling, lower costs, lower pollution and generally less stress. And, while it is true to say that residents in the Tisbury area have poor access to an Optician, visits are generally less frequent. We are not sure, therefore, what importance residents would attach to a local facility.  

AIM 4: Attract a local optician 

Ways Forward:

3.3 STAKEHOLDERS            

Fovant Medical Practice, Hindon Medical Practice, Hospital Transport Service, Tisbury Chamber of Trade, Tisbury Dental Practice, Tisbury Medical Practice, Tisbury Parish Councils, Tisbus and the Link Scheme, Wiltshire Primary Care Trust 

3.4 RESPONSES FROM STAKEHOLDERS 
[Information to follow consultation with external bodies]

4. FIRE AND AMBULANCE SERVICES 

4.1 SUMMARY OF PUBLIC RESPONSES 

a) Awareness Day - None

b) Questionnaire (questions) 

 c) Questionnaire (freeform comments) 

 d) Gap analysis 

- Threat to retained Fire Service if suitable employment in catchment area falls too low
- Fire service commitment to community safety 

e) Validation Days 

- Five comments sought to re-instate fire service ability to respond to medical emergencies 

4.2 ISSUES  

a) The Fire Service 

Tisbury Fire Station has been located on the Avenue, for the last 30 years. The Tisbury crew needs to reach the scene of emergencies within a maximum of 15 minutes. This response time defines an area that includes the Dorset border at Shaftesbury, Tollard Royal, Compton Chamberlayne, Dinton, Wylye, the A350, and the A303. The station receives, on average, some five calls a week.  

In addition to firefighting, typical emergencies include water and rope rescue, road traffic collisions and more recently, as part of the ‘First Responder Scheme’, specified medical treatments such as defibrillation, oxygen therapy and resuscitation. The crew is also heavily involved in free community safety activities such as visiting people and organisations deemed at risk of fire, deploying home check advisors and fitting smoke alarms. 

According to the Integrated Risk Management Plan 2006 for the Wiltshire Fire Service, the Tisbury Fire Station is central to the fire service's long-term strategy. Organisationally, therefore, the future of the fire station is secure. To operate effectively, the station is established for twelve retained firefighters. If the level of employment in the village falls below that which is necessary to provide a pool from which to recruit such a team, then the future of the Fire Station (of which we are all proud and grateful) will be at risk. The team is always looking for new members.

The importance of the fire service and the first responder scheme to Tisbury and to the surrounding areas is clear. If, of course, the fire service were to disappear, so would the first responder scheme.  

AIM 1: Maintain sufficient and suitable employment in Tisbury to provide the pool from which retained firefighters can be recruited 

Way Forward:  

AIM 2: Assist the fire service in the promotion of its community safety work 

Ways Forward:  

b) The Ambulance Service 

The Great Western Ambulance Service, like other ambulance services, has neither the funds nor the resources to perform as it would wish. The service is expected, by the Government, to respond to 75% of “life threatening” calls within 8 minutes.  This response may be an ambulance, a paramedic car or a trained First Responder (see Fire Service response).  Additionally, a fully crewed ambulance is required to respond to 95% of such calls, within 19 minutes. Similarly, 50% of “serious but not life threatening” calls must be responded to in 8 minutes, and 95% within 19 minutes.

Two stations serve Tisbury, one is in Warminster and the other is on the far side of Salisbury.  Occasionally, the Amesbury or Shaftesbury station assists. It is impossible to get an ambulance from Salisbury ambulance station to Tisbury in 19 minutes, and only just possible to do so from Warminster. For these reasons, the Tisbury Fire crew is equipped with a defibrillator and other life support equipment and is thus able to offer a first response service prior to the arrival of an ambulance. We plan no activity beyond that which is included in section 4.2.a above. 

4.3 THE STAKEHOLDERS 

Great Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust, Tisbury Fire Station, Tisbury Parish Councils, Wiltshire Fire Service 

4.4 RESPONSES FROM STAKEHOLDERS
[Information to follow consultation with external bodies]

5. POLICING 

5.1 SUMMARY OF PUBLIC RESPONSES 

a) Awareness Day 

Security (6 comments)
4 question the manning of the police station, 1 advocates CCTV, 1 notes an increase of crime on Friday and Saturday evenings

 b) Questionnaire (questions) 

 c) Questionnaire (freeform comments)