DEVELOPMENT plans for a prominent site in a Dartmoor village attracted hundreds to a public meeting this month. The meeting at Mary Tavy?s Coronation Hall dealt with the two garage sites in the centre of the village ? C J Down and Body?s, which are situated on either side of the main A386 which runs through Mary Tavy. Phil Markham, principal planning officer with Dartmoor National Park Authority, said the two sites were allocated under the park?s current local plan for a variety of uses, principally residential, with some open space areas. Mr Markham said he was delighted with the response to the meeting by residents. ?We had a really good turnout, that?s a lot of people in a small community,? he said. ?It revealed the depth of feeling on a number of points ? you can never please everybody all the time and we obviously have to work within the local plan policies, but there are plenty of details that can be changed to allay people?s concerns on particular points. ?The whole idea of the meeting was to engage with the public, prior to the stage when there would be a development brief for the site, which would then form the basis of a planning application for the site in due course.? Mr Markham said the DNPA wanted to look at both garage sites together, rather than in isolation, though the authority appreciated that only one site was likely to be developed in the near future. Terry Pearce, chairman of Mary Tavy Parish Council, said it was ?very early days? to be thinking about what would finally happen to the site. But he was very pleased at the number of people who had taken the effort to turn up and make their views known. He said: ?We were delighted with the support we had at the exhibition, it was a tremendous turn out. ?Everyone knows the development will take place on the site, but it has to be done properly, taking in many issues, particularly those of road safety, but it was fantastic the parish council had such support from local residents.? Mr Pearce said it would be many months before any planning application was put in for the site, but in the meantime, it was important the parish council and residents had the opportunity to have their say on any development. ?It has to be in keeping with the village. We are not going to be bounced into anything by developers,? said Mr Pearce.
