WHAT a very sad headline in the August 15 edition of the Okehampton Times — Coaches are passing us by — and how very true.

Even as you read this, coaches are zipping along the bypass because drivers are by now well aware that there is nowhere for them to park, a facility for which Okehampton was once well known.

Traditionally, Okehampton was a staging post, and for well over three centuries the town was well-endowed with coaching inns. In those far off days a horse drawn coach would travel at 10 mph, the teams of horses changed every ten miles, the teams of ostlers competing with each other for speed of changes over, not unlike a pit stop on a modern racing circuit.

And what were the passengers doing while all this was going on? Enjoying the facilities provided, the toilets, a bit to eat, a wee dram of something warming.

Very little has changed in this respect except that the coaches are now motorised. The traveller still requires comfort and sustenance. But not, it seems, in Okehampton. And why? Because our planners and masters, once again, thought they knew better than anyone else, and once again the existing problem is entirely of their own making.

They sold off our central coach park to build a supermarket when we already had two. Have they never heard the saying 'You can't have the penny and the bun?' Well now, In Okehampton, with three supermarkets, we are knee-deep in buns of all shapes, sizes and nationalities, but nowhere to park a coach!

As for the 'drop-off' point in Market Street, have our planners and masters never seen a coach disgorge its elderly passengers? They take a good ten minutes to alight and the same to get back on again, and they will not be hurried. Why should they be? And while they are savouring the delights of Okehampton, what is the poor coach driver doing, driving round in circles?

Clearly — to all but our planners and masters — what is urgently needed is a central coach park near all facilities, like the one they sold. But they say that land is expensive. Well, they should know! So here are a few ideas, all of which could be termed 'enhancement' so there should be no trouble with finance.

1. Divert the river running along the Waitrose car park and use the dried river bed for a coach park.

2. Excavate beneath either or both supermarkets to form an underground coach park.

3. Make either of the supermarkets an offer they cannot refuse, bulldoze and form an above-ground coach park.

Stupid ideas, I hear you say? Maybe so, but no more stupid than flogging off the coach park in the first place.

Let us hope that our planners and masters will come up with a better idea and soon, because while they prevaricate, according to the Okehampton Chamber of Trade, the town is missing out on something like £2,000 per day!

Richard G Williams

Cranmere

Castle Road

Okehampton