AN exciting blueprint for the future of Tavistock and the surrounding area is on the final countdown before its launch to major funding agencies next month.

Markets, Moors and Meadows ? Action for Community Initiatives is the product of months of hard work by the Tavistock and Area Villages Initiative group (TAVI), which contains more than 30 projects to improve and enhance the area.

The last draft of the action plan, which has been subject to extensive public consultation, is now ready to be presented to representatives from big national and regional funding agencies at a ?brokering table? in the town. It is hoped that ultimately, this approach could attract thousands of pounds of investment into the area.

Christopher Kirwin, chairman of TAVI, said: ?We?ve had some very valuable and interesting feedback, with at least two ideas we weren?t aware of and which we?re very keen to support, so it was definitely worth consulting people again.

?We?re excited and looking forward to the brokering day and the success of the recent music festival in Tavistock has obviously put us on a bit of a high.?

Mr Kirwin said the action plan was an ?organic document? which would continue to evolve. A website was being created which would be regularly updated with progress reports and the plan was also available in CD form.

Andrew Young, market towns development co-ordinator, said he was ?very pleased? at the feedback to the final version of Markets, Moors and Meadows, which was being sent to the printers this week.

A special preview evening will be held in Tavistock on June 15, the night before the brokering table, when the public will be able to learn about the 33 projects in the action plan and talk to the people involved with them.

Schemes include the Tavistock Youth Café, a skate park for Tavistock, the rebuilding of Lamerton Village Hall, development of Princetown?s prison museum, an annual food festival and the re-opening of the Tavistock to Plymouth railway.

And on June 16, invited guests from a wide range of bodies, including English Heritage, the Regional Development Agency, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Defra, the Learning and Skills Council, the NFU, South West Lakes Trust and many others, will see at first hand what is on offer in the action plan.

Mr Young said he thought the ?brokering table? would be ?really helpful?.

?Getting people together in the same place, talking about the same projects at the same time gets things going in a way that endless phone calls or e-mails can never do,? he said.

?If people are talking about issues face-to-face they are far more likely to make progress.?

But he warned that a brokering table did not mean funders came along with an open cheque book.

?It?s really about putting people in the local area in touch with the agencies who can help these ideas mature and become successful.

?Brokering is still very new ? it?s very much about understanding how the bottom-up initiative and top-down strategy meet in the middle.

?For example, if there is an IT skills training initiative in place by government and perhaps a village hall which wants to do IT training, that would probably happen much more quickly than if there wasn?t a regional strategy in place.?

l Anyone who would like to see a copy of Markets, Moors and Meadows can obtain a CD copy from the TAVI office at 20 Plymouth Road, Tavistock, PL19 8AY, 01822 618715.