5. Community Services

Opinions were sought on eight key community services and the responses are shown in the following diagram (Figure 1). 75% of respondents considered postal services to be good and refuse collection was only slightly less at 71%. Regular personal contact with the employees of these service providers may be a reason for the high levels of satisfaction.

Mobile Library. Only 3% (7 people) use the mobile library on each visit with a further 9% using the service less frequently and 88% admitted to never using the mobile library. Most users considered a good standard of service was being provided.

Village Shop. There was substantial support for a village shop with 150 people (69%) indicating that they would be prepared to pay more to shop in Rattery .

Health and Social Services. The general view (held by at least 75 % of people) was that health and social services were to a good or reasonable standard, particularly maternity care (100%), doctors (98%), district nurse (98%) and emergency ambulance (92%). Whilst numbers were small, responses did indicate some poor experiences with the following services:

Access problems were identified to some extent for all services, indicating a lack of public transport in a rural area. Main problems with access related to NHS dentist (19%), doctor (14%), chemist (14%), hospital (16%) and optician (13%). In addition 18 persons (8%) reported problems with collecting prescription medicines.

Recent changes to the landscape. Most people (40%), considered that there has been no significant change to the Rattery landscape over recent years whilst 15% considered the landscape to have deteriorated and 6% considered that it had improved. A further 39% of people were unable to form any definite view on landscape quality.

Trees, woods, orchards and hedges. Most people agreed that the preservation of trees (85%), woods (91%) and orchards (77%) is important to the village landscape. There was also considerable support for planting more trees 149 people (78%) and new orchards 146 people (78%).

There was less support for more hedges (52%) and 43% of people considered more hedges to be unnecessary. Views were evenly divided on the question of hedge maintenance with 63% stating a preference for tidy hedges but 49% preferring that hedges were allowed to grow.

Protecting the countryside. There was a general consensus where 89% of respondents considered that we all have a responsibility for protecting the countryside, with local authorities 40%, farmers 39% and central government 18% also having responsibilities.

The impact of litter on the environment was considered to be important or worthwhile by 92% of people and for repairs to gates and bridges the figure was 86%. Measures to limit road verge damage were considered to be very important or worthwhile by 75% of people, although opinions were almost evenly divided on whether road verges should be kept tidy (64%) or allowed to grow naturally (65%).

Footpaths. A high proportion of people (75%), use footpaths at least once a year, 28% of people use footpaths at least weekly, and 7% use footpaths each day.

There was substantial support to maintain existing footpaths from 74% of people, and 53% were in favour of more paths; possibly identifying issues of access to the countryside.

Overhead cables. There was a strongly held view by 80% of people that overhead cables should be placed underground to enhance the appearance of the village.

Community compost scheme. 100 people (45%) responded stating that they would participate in a community composting scheme if it was introduced, although only 44 people indicated that they would use the facility often.