For Upper Marshwood Vale

for Upper Marshwood Vale Bettiscombe Stoke Abbott Pilsdon Marshwood Inside front cover INDEX INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM THE STEERING COMMITTEE 1 A PROFILE OF OUR PARISH 2 RTWORK PARISH PLAN: OUR OBJECTIVES 3 THE PROCESS 4 Cover Print: Cover OUR HEALTH AND WELFARE: THE ELDERLY 5 THE AGE CONUNDRUM 6 Aviva Halter-Hurn, OUR HOUSING 7 OUR ENVIRONMENT AS WE EXPERIENCE IT 8 PUBLIC TRANSPORT 9 CONDITIONS OF OUR ROADS 10 Design: SAFETY ON OUR ROADS 11 Caroline Conran, Aviva Halter-Hurn, SAFETY AND SECURITY FOR PEOPLE AND PROPERTY 12 COMMUNICATIONS 13 OUR VALE AND OUR FUTURE APPENDECES 15 APPENDIX 1 WHAT YOU TOLD US - SURVEY RESULTS SUMARISED 16 APPENDIX 2 YOUR WIDER VIEWS OF OUR VALE 22 APPENDIX 3 ABOUT RESIDENTS, THEIR HOMES AND JOBS 24 Photos: APPENDIX 4 YOUR STEERING COMMITTEE INSIDE BACK COVER Steering Committee YOUR PARISH COUNCIL INSIDE BACK COVER APPENDIX 5 YOUR CONTACTS OUTSIDE BACK COVER A 1 Upper Marshwood Vale Parish Plan Steering Committee Dear Resident, Here is your Parish Plan. After a brief background to Upper Marshwood Vale, we set out how we created the Plan at the heart of which are reports on nine areas of our life in our vale. These are based on what you told us in the survey and for each we propose actions to improve matters or take us forward. Some will need action by your Parish Council, others will need your co-operation, however this Plan tells us all what we want for the future and, we hope, how we can achieve the improvements we all seek. We have taken our time. This means your concerns have been carefully researched, wishes surveyed in depth and outlook painstakingly compiled to reflect the wishes of residents the Upper Marshwood Vale and what we think we need. It is from these problems, concerns and ideas that we have tried to draw up 19 specific recommendations that now have the approval of our Parish Council who have just endorsed the Plan. Finally there are summaries of the survey results question by question along with your answers on quality and feelings as well as dislikes and concerns. These should provide real evidence for our council officials to appreciate exactly what we who live in the Upper Marshwood Vale really want. Our timing has been most fortunate; this Parish Plan is a prime example of the ‘collaborative democracy’ that the new government is starting to enact. So now your Parish Plan has far more influence than we could have imagined when we started since county and district councils now give as much, if not more, weight to our expressed wishes as to guidelines and policy. Even so, the real success of this Plan is now in your hands. Please join in to push for things you feel need to happen. Your Parish Plan Steering Committee 2 PROFILE OF OUR PARISH A BEAUTIFUL UNSPOILED VALLEY IN THE HEART OF WEST DORSET, THE PARISH OF UPPER MARSHWOOD VALE INCLUDES THE CHURCH PARISHES OF BETTISCOMBE, STOKE ABBOTT, PILSDON AND MARSHWOOD Dorset’s geology is amongst the most The remains of Marshwood Castle, built in the remarkable in the British Isles and the Upper 13th century as a hunting lodge by William de Marshwood Vale is no exception. The upland Mandeville still stand guard to the south of the ridges of Pilsdon and Lewesdon Hill are the parish. But Marshwood then was not a quiet glorious result of mounded layers of backwater; so important were both the family and greensand while the basin or vale is the result the hunting that the ‘Honour of Marshwood’ was of wearing away the original deposits of deemed the most important in all Dorset. Jurassic rocks, a mixture of blue lias clay, sand and limestone deposited on the floor of what Pilsdon Manor, now a sanctuary and religious once was a shallow sea, the scoured groove community, dates from the Tudor period. forming a valley we call the Vale Occupied by a Royalist family during the Civil war, it was ransacked by parliamentarians looking This is a designated Area of Outstanding for Charles who eventually became King Charles Natural Beauty; a soft and enfolding landscape II. of rounded hills, hidden hamlets with cider orchards, ancient tiny lanes banked in spring On the valley floor below Pilsdon, Shave Cross with wild flowers - daffodils, primroses and has been the location of an inn for 700 years. The bluebells, farms patterned with ancient field inn, which still stands, has an ancient bowling systems, woods and rows of hedgerow oaks. alley and is named as the stopping place where Buzzards, falcons and ravens dominate the air pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St Whyte in and badgers, deer and foxes criss-cross the Whitchurch Canonicorum paused to smarten up hills below. and get their heads shaved. An area larger than Exmoor and more sparsely In the 1800s, the area was home to many populated, the remoteness of the vale is less prisoners of the Napoleonic wars, who were used evident than in the past but the roads are still to plant all the hedges many of which still thrive narrow and it retains its tranquillity, which is today. highly prized by residents. The village church at Bettiscombe was known as a Settlements have existed here over many smugglers haunt while Bettiscombe Manor was centuries - the evidence is all around us. On the home to the Pinney family who made their the western edge is Lambert’s Castle, an Iron fortune as traders and plantation owners in the age settlement now protected by The National island of Nevis in the West Indies. The house in Trust and once the site of a country fairs and its beautiful setting below Pilsdon along with the horse races. Evidence of Roman occupation whole farming community of Bettiscombe is can be found in a small fort at Waddon Hill, supplied with water from an abundant natural just above Stoke Abbott, whilst Iron age spring said to have been sacred to the druids. earthworks on Pilsdon Pen, are said to have been used for rituals concerning the passage of The airspace above the vale was used for military the dead to the next world from what is the training of pilots in the 1940s, a practice that highest point in Dorset at 909 feet above sea continues today to the alarm of flocks of sheep level. It was at times occupied as a settlement and prize dairy cows on the hills below. and later in Mediaeval times became useful as a rabbit farm or burrows. 3 PARISH PLAN: OUR OBJECTIVES The aim of the Plan is to put forward the The Upper Marshwood Vale Parish Council has concerns, issues and recommendations raised by approved the Plan permitting action on the the residents of the Upper Marshwood Vale recommendations made. Parish to the local authorities. This will enable the plan to be regularly Thus our Plan will be taken into account by reviewed and for liaison with the various West Dorset District Council in the preparation authorities and services provided to take place. of their Community Plan. By adopting the plan the Parish Council Our Plan should also bring together people who recognises the concerns of their residents and have a common interest in a particular issue or make representations to the District or County subject. Councils and the Bridport Local Area Partnership. The results of the survey will enable any requests for funding for any particular project to Some of the issues raised can be addressed by be supported by the evidence of the responses. the residents of the parish and means should be encouraged to co-ordinate those activities. Sea frets reach Bettiscombe 4 PARISH PLAN: THE PROCESS As a result of a presentation to Upper A wide-ranging questionnaire was prepared to Marshwood Vale Parish Council by Dorset determine the demographics of the Parish and to Community Action it was decided to initiate the cover as many likely issues and views as possible. procedures to prepare a Parish Plan. It was agreed that all the information received A public meeting was held at Bettiscombe from the questionnaire should be anonymous. Village Hall in November 2008 to determine the Only those volunteering help or seeking to interest of the residents. At this meeting various partake in a project should be put in touch with issues and concerns were raised that could be like-minded residents. included in the Plan. A steering group was formed comprising of 11 volunteers and 2 A draft plan was sent to the Parish Council for parish councillors. additions and amendments when the plan was finally approved ready for printing and With guidance from Dorset Community Action, distribution to every household in the Upper funding for the production of the plan has been Marshwood Vale. The Parish Plan will also be obtained from West Dorset District Council presented to residents at a public meeting, details with a grant of £2,335 and the Parish Council to be advised. with a grant of £150. The number of properties in the Vale detailed by It was agreed that maximum awareness of the the West Dorset District Council was 305. Our Plan was important and a single page news sheet survey was hand delivered by the team to each was produced to advise residents that a household. In the course of these deliveries it was questionnaire would be distributed and to seek determined that at least 44 properties were second subjects of concern to residents. homes or holiday lets where the survey would be irrelevant, leaving 261 homes.

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