Papalscope

HINDON LANE CONSULTATION.

I covered the matters raised by the TISVIS Questionnaire
In August. One attended the Plan Presentation in the Tisbury Library Lobby on the afternoon of 18th.August, and managed to walk straight past it. It really was not good enough to display the plan in the lobby, for that was all the District Council did. It would have been far better to have erected a gazebo (with attached Balloons?) on the forecourt. None the less by successfully blocking the entrance to the library a number of persons did get to speak with the Planning Officers.

One gentleman spoke of the necessity to have any new housing at the centre of Tisbury. He was actually standing at the centre of Tisbury as he expressed his opinion. He too had been seen that misleading map someone did with a whole lot of concentric circles which showed the Square to be the centre of the hub of the immediate Parish. Much as my Chinese readers used to believe their country to be the centre of the earth. A while back ‘The Cabinet’ was told that 85% of the Parish was against so many houses on Hindon Lane. This was surely being economical with the actualité, because that item of data related not specifically to the locus of Hindon Lane but to Excessive Housing anywhere in the Parish. The Question is not are we going to have an Estate of sixty plus houses in Tisbury, but where we are to have it.

Does one build at Station Works Site?

This site is well outside the District Plan Building Boundary. That Plan when drawn up was approved by both the District and the Parish Councils. Our then Parish Council lodged no objection to it at Appeal. As it happens I did lodge my own objection in the subsequent Appeal Process. (This concerned the exclusion of Upper Chicksgrove Tisbury from the Plan, for it is a constituent part of Tisbury; Lower Chicksgrove in Sutton Mandeville was given Plan Space.) That same plan proposed the ‘Hindon Lane Site’ might be used for mixed development. When the Salisbury District plan was eventually published that June. It was not a document drawn up by anonymous Planning Officers, for our then sole District Councillor for Tisbury was party to it.

Why all the complaint now? Did our then Parish Council fail to give proper care and attention to this Plan? Of course Hindon Lane has no more wish to have sixty houses on their door step, than I would want to have them on mine. None the less if the price of not building at Hindon Lane or elsewhere, is that the Village loses that fine industrial area at Station Works, then the cost is too high.

I believe that on any site Government requires that circa 30% of housing built should be affordable. This does not mean that it will be affordable to ‘The Tisbury Working Man’. It would not be a re-run of the Council House ‘Bonanza’. This ‘in-affordability’ would more especially be the case if there are no jobs to be had at Station Works the site had been covered with houses costing three or four hundred thousand pound .

I heard a Cabinet member tell that most of the track side on the way up to London was built upon. I really do not see what sort of a debating point that is. Tisbury has no necessity to follow suite. Do we wish Tisbury to become yet another Commuter Suburb? Would you prefer to live beside the railway line, rather than off Hindon Lane?

There does seem to be an anomaly with the Hindon Lane project. It’s that work area, which will attract traffic to the site. Surely it would be more sensible if the Hindon Lane be restricted to housing, whilst work units might better be constructed at Station Works. Thus keeping that latter Site as a place of employment for this and future generations. The local ‘workforce’ needs affordable workspace, much as the indigenous resident needs affordable housing .

Do we have to so commercialise a second area of Tisbury? Further more the unit cost of ‘more’ houses at Hindon Lane should be lower if one builds more of them. One understands that the proposed builder of these houses, was in part responsible for the construction of HRH. The Prince of Wales’s ‘Poundbury’ Development, outside Dorchester.

If the property company that bought the ‘Station Works’ site are unable to find tenants to occupy their cavernous capacity. There is a simple option. They can either leave the place empty, or knock it down and rebuild the sort of units that the twenty first century requires. Such units are snapped up elsewhere. See the local developments at Semley, and Wilton Station yard and Dinton. One must not be naïve concerning successful Property Developers. St. Modwyn have a track record for buying brown field land, and selling the land on for housing. Thereby is the profit made. I have no knowledge that they buy factory sites with any long term intention to continue running the business in occupation. There are others whose opinion is different to my own, however I believe the loss of Station Works would be a disaster for the future viability of Tisbury as a mixed community.

Tisbury must not let this happen. I write as a new comer in this Village albeit of twenty six years standing. It may seem easy enough to live on one of the Village frontiers and have views as to what should happen over Station Works, or off Hindon Lane. However it would be easier to look the other way and remain silent whilst witnessing that which I see as a grievous harm done to Tisbury. Especially easy as whatever happens to either site will have little effect on my lifestyle.

It is possibly because one has no personal involvement that one can afford to see such matters in the terms of what seems to be right and what seems not to be so.
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The Tisbury Parish Council.
How many Parish Councillors does Tisbury Need? This matter is coming up for reconsideration at the Alamein Suite of the City Hall in Salisbury on Tuesday September 5th 2006. We currently have an allocation of fifteen Parish Councillors, this is one Parish Councillor for every 111 of us. Elsewhere on average 15 Parish Councillors each represent 212 electors, the recommendation to the Planning and Regulatory Panel of the District Council is that the number of our Parish Councillors be reduced from fifteen to eleven. This would allow one Parish Councillor for every 152 electors, elsewhere on average eleven Parish Councillors each represent 150 electors. The Tisbury Parish Council has no wish to see the number of Parish Councillors reduced to eleven Councillors. They write of the prospect of an increasing work load on remaining Councillors, and the prospect of eighty new dwellings in the Parish, and that things have remained un changed for thirty years.

I see no increasing work load on Councillors. Already much of the work is covered by a regular Cadre of fewer, than eleven Parish Councillors. There are others who have the habit of neither turning up for Council Meetings, nor frequently enough do some bother to present their apologies for absence. Our Village has no shortage of persons unable to spare the time to become a Parish Councillor, however if those who have volunteered their Services can not attend meetings, then maybe they would do well to stand down.

At the time of the last co-option process there were also two unsuccessful applicants willing to fill the one vacancy for a Parish Councillor. Would the co-option process have had the same outcome if all of the fourteen Parish Councillors entitled to cast a vote, had bothered to turn up for the meeting?

It is time to prune Tisbury Parish Council. It has too many seats. It is this superfluity that has deprived Tisbury of the opportunity to vote for a Parish Council since 1995. We now have an up to date list of Parish Councillors on the Notice Board. There are no addresses given against any name. Is this because so many co-opted members are either resident on Hindon Lane, or the approaches there to? It is over eleven years since Tisbury had the opportunity to elect a Parish Councillor for ourselves. None of those currently in Office is there by the exercise of the Public Franchise. This of itself is no reflection any Parish Councillor, Tisbury should be appreciative of the service members give.

Some Parish Councillors pull their weight, others are less attentive. One may suppose that if there were fewer Parish Councillors, each one of them would need to turn up for both meetings of the Parish Council held each month. There is no call to have the current cushion for absenteeism.

Affordable and Social Housing,
is no substitute for what used to be known as Council Housing. This Village still has some of that, but used to have more units of Social Housing that belonged to the War Department as was. Such was our stock of Affordable Housing available to be let mostly to Tisbury people. Much of this sort of housing has been sold off under ‘The Right to Buy Scheme’. Well done all those who bought wisely. I have always thought this Right to Buy Scheme was a cynical bribe offered by an incoming Conservative Government.

One heard the Argument that people were having to pay all that rent for a house they would never own. Doesn’t everyone else at some time have to pay such rent on their home. It is called Interest on a Mortgage Loan. The ‘owning the house’ part of the deal is further money one pays out on top of the interest each month, it is that which repays the principal borrowed.

When a man with a good job goes to buy a house. The monthly repayment is usually taken on the chin. Many find the main problems in the Deposit Money, Survey fee, Solicitor’s cut and paying the Government Stamp duty. I believe that now starts at a purchase price of £125,000.

If, to beg the question, cheaper housing is required. There are ways to cut costs. First of all reconsider the Planning Process, cut out all the delay which is another way of saying ‘Consultation’ for the answer to Consultation is

‘No not in my back yard, such development will bring down the value of my house’.

In Tisbury one ‘brown field’ has been redeveloped after another. Without wishing to be invidious these include Mallards Close, Lady Down, this Farm Yard, that Dinnerdog site, Overdown, Bennet Mews, Was there not a builder at the Old Garden, and another more extensively at Church Close, One and a half Garages fallen to housing, the Coal Yard and the Allotments site. Of course there used to be three or four Allotment sites in the village, what is the ultimate future of the remaining one?

There is now once again this talk of building Houses at Station Works, and pressure surrounds the old Auction rooms adjoining the South Western. If we want our mixed working community to become exclusively ‘Thames Valley Residential’ we are going the right way about it.

I was born in a thriving Thames Valley Village. We had Groceries, and Green Grocers, Butcher and Fish monger, W.H.Smith, and two Garages, a Chemist, and a Post Office, and a Dairy Shop, and a News Agents, and a Railway Station, and Boat Builders. There was too an Estate Agent in a front room, and Lady P. ran a gentile Antique shop, if such best describes the set of rooms in her own home. Tisbury still has such facilities.
My natal Village is no longer short of Antique Shops or House Agents, or Restaurants where Celebrities and Stars of Television dine, or new Housing Developments, but the basic Retail Services are long gone. Its Regatta is well patronised by the Village’s new residents who wine and dine on the River Bank as if at a Fete Champetre, but few give heed to what’s afloat, or are aware that the actual players are the same handful of Families who have competed for decades, but are no longer resident. It puts one in mind of the core-locals putting on their equivalence of ‘The Puy de Feu or Oberammergau.’ It is largely a matter of location but Tisbury should surely remember the pitfalls before abandoning their working community, to let in yet another wave of Social Immigrants, however nice we all are.’

IF NOT IN MY BACK YARD, WHERE?
Maybe there are too many houses in the South. Should new houses be built elsewhere, with other jobs to hand? If one does that, one can easily unbalance the Status Quo. It never occurred to my daughters to seek to purchase a property in Tisbury. There is a whole new world out there. One should not expect to live in a village because one was born in it, or because one’s parents are resident in it. Life is not like that. My lot live hundreds of miles away and it’s not very convenient. Guess what? There are the same sort of housing problems where they now work and live. The locals can not afford to buy property.

‘ It’s the same the whole world over.

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These matters need to be addressed at Government level. People are entitled to have a proper home, and if it inconveniences the rest of us that is our misfortune.

The Proposed Hindon Lane Site is no more Greenfield than was High Field, or any of its neighbours. No greener than Duck Street or the Old Allotment Site adjoining the old coal yard. Should any wonder where the third and fourth Allotment Sites mentioned were located. These were at The Station Works and I believe Wallmead Farm?

That Purchaser’s Pack
The proposed Purchaser’s Pack was a false step along the right path. Title deeds and Searches should be to hand, maybe there is a need for a ‘Log Book’ However that business of a Survey and Valuation was but bureaucratic nonsense. The value of a house is as much in the eye of the purchaser, as is its beauty in the eye of the beholder. Possibly the English too should be immediately required to exchange contracts when a sale is agreed upon between Buyer and Seller. A forfeitable Deposit to be matched by a similar fine on a reneging Vendor. There could be a ‘let out’ clause should the purchaser be unable to obtain a mortgage, only that could make the whole deal null and void. It is totally unacceptable that a vendor might decide to accept a better offer from a third party after an intending purchaser has been put to the expense associated with a house purchase, or that the Vendor should be proffered a lesser amount from a purchaser at the last minute. Why has Government allowed this situation to go on for so long. Our Property Laws, together with Planning Regulations need refurbishment.

PARLIAMENT
We elect members of Parliament to ‘put matters right’, all one gets back is an unending stream of petty fogging irrelevances, that hinder more than facilitate. It is to be regretted that so much of our legislation spews from the pens of Parliamentarians, many of whom have little experience of anything. As for the European Parliament, words fail one. Why is all Government reduced to its lowest common denominator? Bring back Statesmanship.

.Vehicle Tax and Insurance
Television Licences.

Friends in France assure me that they no longer pay what we call Motor Vehicle Road Tax. They place their faith in
Insurance Discs. No Resident is entitled to drive a vehicle unless it has a vignette on the windscreen, this is a receipt for an Insurance Premium paid. Maybe we should adopt at least this system that assures Drivers are covered in case of accident. There should be no need to suffer uninsured damage.

Television licences there, are now an addition on the Community Charge. There is the necessity for the house owner to ‘contract out’ from watching abominable French television.

MULTI -CULTURALISM
At long last one hears the voice of reason. Who was it that redirected England’s evolved homogenised Society along the divisive paths of Multi-Culturalism. Have we learned nothing from our own Province of Ireland, or South Africa or from the Ghettoes of Nazi Germany ?

I see the term Ghetto strictly refers to a minority area of a city. There is a news item this week that ten per cent of the population of Southampton is Polish. Can this really be so? Many Poles fought alongside our forces in the second World War, but is it wise to have allowed so many fellow Europeans to seek work in the United Kingdom? One hears tell of Rumanians and Bulgarians coming, and too
Non- Europeans who have been issued with Bulgarian Passports.

‘Jobs The English won’t do’
One may wonder why we ‘won’t do these jobs ’ Is there a section of our Society that has no need of Board or Lodging? To repeat oneself, we can not all be ‘Brain Surgeons’ If one can not get a job of one’s choice then maybe one should take some other sort of employment? The world is full of people doing things they might prefer not to be doing. There is a stark choice. Either keep ones nose to the grindstone, or seek more congenial employment. We should stop paying Unemployment , Housing and other Benefits to the deluded or work shy. It is wonderful to hear that the poorly paid can claim ‘Tax Credits’ My first full time ‘ever so smart employment’ in the City paid £270 per annum for five and a half days work a week, Plus Luncheon Vouchers for five days only. How nice a Tax Credit might have been. I might have left the parental home and hired a flat, become a larger Lout, begat children or even been able to afford to marry earlier than one did.

Young people now have every opportunity for further Education. Is it beneficial to populate the world with a plethora of Graduates in Media Studies, when all that’s required, are Tradesmen and persons able to put pen to paper and use a pocket calculator? Bring back the Artisan. Abolish the Politically Correct ‘soi disant’ University. Give more training on the job.

Apparently Poland is currently providing us with many Dentists. Tisbury has benefited from both a French and a German Doctor. Why does this Country have such an insufficiency of Doctors and Dentists, and Nurses and Carpenters and Plumbers and Electricians or whatever? We are told that Schools and Universities are abandoning Chemistry and Physics as these subjects are deemed too hard and become unpopular. The rewards for a Physicist do not compare well with other Salaries. I know of two persons locally who left Bristol University with a First Class Degree in Physics, but both entered the Financial Sector.

The Voluntary Tax

There is news this week that a Building Society located in Kent has started an interest only Mortgage. The Mortgagor’s heirs eventually pay off the Principal of the loan, by selling the property post mortem. This scheme has been available in other countries.

Financial pundits here have been giving it ‘stick’. It is not a good scheme for the poor man, but could be beneficial for the rich. Maybe one might devise a wheeze to avoid Inheritance Tax @ 40%. Is it not known as the voluntary Tax? I believe that if one gives property away seven years before one’s death, the gift is not subject to inheritance tax. If one had made a gift of ones home but continued to live in it, then unless one paid the new owner the Market Rent for the full period of ones ‘tenancy’ one would not have avoided paying Inheritance Tax on the gift.

If instead, one took out a substantial loan on the house and made Interest Only repayments to the Mortgagee. The Interest paid should be less than one would pay as a Market Rent to ones beneficiaries , further more they would have had immediate use of the Capital sum borrowed at least seven years earlier than they might have done. If the house continued to rise in value, there might be a further dividend; that would form a part of ones Estate. And so be the subject of Inheritance Tax. This sounds a little like having ones cake whilst letting ones heirs and successors eat it

我的中文问候一千六百万 John B. Pope