WEST Devon Borough has an adopted Core Strategy which was subjected to two weeks of examination in public in November 2010. No-one came forward at that inquiry to oppose the council's proposals for 4,400 new dwellings by 2026, of which 40% should be affordable homes.

Objections to the plans for Tavistock centred on the non-viability of the recommended site off Callington Road and high risks of non-delivery. This is exacerbated by proposals for extensive infrastructure, including a new primary school, hospital and a railway-link costing over £18-million.

Since that inquiry, house completions in the borough have fallen, and there is an increasing need for affordable homes, none of which have yet been started at either of the two sites designated in the strategic plan. The borough council is powerless to force a developer to deliver their plans, however attractive they might have appeared to members of the public during the four years of consultations.

The Planning Inspector,approved the Core Strategy as sound with one major caveat, namely that there should be a Plan B in case developers did not deliver the planned number of houses at either Okehampton and Tavistock. Despite his comments, no such Plan B has been established.

Messrs Gasper and Johnson wrote (Letters, October 17) expressing objections to Redrow and Persimmon proposing new housing in Tavistock outside of the designated strategic planning boundary.

However, both developers were represented at the public inquiry. They can readily point to difficulties in delivering houses at site SP23a, off Callington Road, because the latest site-surveys and responses from official bodies are publicly visible online on WDBC's pages of the Government's Planning Portal.

Both developers could claim that they are merely following the inspector's guidance and offering the Plan B he requested, thereby providing much needed affordable homes for local people.

It would be a brave member of the planning committee to turn them down without a much higher level of confidence that the proposed 750 houses off Callington Road are actually going to be deliverable.

Paul Richardson

Lumburn Rise

Tavistock