A DEAD-END has been reached in the efforts to find a new town centre car park in Tavistock.

After tyre company ATS punctured West Devon Borough Council's scheme to build a car park on their Parkwood Road premises, the authority's development committee rejected the idea of using the old Unigate site in Market Road this week.

The town council is selling the old dairy site which the borough hoped would provide about ten or eleven parking spaces.

David Inman, deputy chief executive of the borough council, said: 'We evaluated the site and we expressed a tentative interest with the town council, but our members felt it was a very tight site and obviously we would also require consent from the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions because it is in a conservation area.

'The town council needs to get rid of the site quickly — from our point of view we didn't have enough time with the ball to establish our position,' he said.

He stressed the Abbey Garage site was not an economic proposition for a car park.

'It's more suitable for a ski slope than a car park,' said Mr Inman.

He said entry would need to be from Abbey Rise car park and cars would have to negotiate a series of ramps to the bottom level and climb the same ramps to get out again.

'It would provide a skateboarder's heaven,' he said.

Mr Inman said a car park on the site would provide 30 to 40 spaces but would require a 'massive amount of money' to build.

'It would be better to find somewhere else than, in effect, extend the Abbey Rise car park,'

he said.

'We will continue to evaluate sites as and when they become available — we'll have to see.'

Town mayor Roger Mathew said parking in Tavistock was a 'terribly difficult' problem.

'The problem Tavistock has is that it's situated in a narrow river valley and you haven't got the level space to find car parking.

'With the best will in the world I don't think one is going to replace the Bedford Square car parking with a car park on the Unigate site,' he said.

Plans to build a new 30-space town centre car park on the ATS site fell through last month after the tyre company backed away from a move to premises on Plymouth Road.

The borough hoped the project — in negotiation for several years — would boost the eastern end of the town.