PRINCETOWN was the focus for a visit by Conservative Euro MP Giles Chichester recently.

Despite nursing a badly sprained ankle, Mr Chichester called in at a host of local organisations, accompanied by the ward's West Devon Conservative councillor Diana Moyse and prospective parliamentary candidate Geoffrey Cox.

The communications mast at North Hessary was the first port of call followed by a visit to the High Moorland Community Action headquarters.

Mr Chichester said he was impressed that so many voluntary members of HMCA took the time out of their working day to meet him.

He added that he understood their frustration at the layers of bureaucracy between European funding and their community action.

'Would that I could wave a wand and change things!' he said. 'I have undertaken to investiage whether certain specific administrative burdens on them are required by European regulation or, as I suspect, bureaucracy closer to home.'

Cllr Moyse said it was essential that funding be found from October to pay for a community worker to co-ordinate and give advice for the continuation of the work undertaken by residents.

She added: 'In a community as remote as Princetown it is extremely important that there are facilities such as the Phoenix Project, the brainchild of HMCA, in which the young people of the town can participate in creating and afterwards call their own.'

Mr Chichester later visited Dartmoor Prison where he said he had 'the sense of a well run establishment'.