REGARDING your front page article (April 22), may I respectfully make the following comments: ?

Tavistock Peace Action Group have every right to pose questions ? and expect answers ? regarding emergency procedures throughout the West Devon area should there be a nuclear accident at Devonport.

However, as a member of both the Tavistock Town and West Devon Borough Council there is no way in which I could support these, or any other authorities, attempting to pressurise the owners of Devonport Dockyard to close work on nuclear submarines, as suggested by TPAG.

For surely we should all recall the reason this work came to Devonport in the first place. It was not foisted upon the area by some overbearing government; rather, local MPs and councillors (right across the board in terms of political persuasion), trades unions, employees? organisations, plus numerous local citizens, fought a protracted and persuasive campaign to get this work for Devonport ? rightly, in my view, for the numerous jobs created by this contract was ? and remains ? crucial to the economy of Plymouth and adjoining areas, including the Borough of West Devon.

If a campaign causes this vital defence work at Devonport to close, then it would merely be transferred elsewhere ? there would be several ports in Britain that would welcome it.

And the upshot would be that our local economy ? hard pressed, low waged and lacking government investment at the best of times ? would be hit to an extent which would cause financial hardship to copious families in this area.

Thus, whilst TPAG are right to endeavour to ensure emergency procedures are in place, any campaign to bring about their ceasing of work at Devonport Dockyard would be, in my view, merely the pursuance of alarmist, blinkered and self-indulgent dogma, and against the needs and interests of the community as a whole.

Cllr Ted Sherrell

60 Whitchurch Road

Tavistock