COUNCILLORS in Callington have been overwhelmed with the response received from a recent questionnaire delivered to residents to give their views on the future of the town writes Sam Hughes.

The large questionnaire was sent out to residents last month as part of the formation of the Callington and Kelly Bray Neighbourhood Plan. It covered everything from housing to health, tourism, schools and green spaces and asked residents to give their views on how they would like to see Callington develop in the future.

The questionnaire was delivered to more than 3,000 households and councillors were worried that the size of the document would put people off, but were delighted with the number of responses they got back.

Town clerk Helen Dowdall said: ‘We were overwhelmed. We thought we would get around 30 or so back but we’ve ended up with between 300 and 400. It was a mammoth questionnaire and we thought that would put people off but we wanted to get it all done in one go.

‘People have told us what they want — good and bad. We can’t mind read so it is good that people are speaking up for what they want for their town.’

With a change in government legislation and through the creation of a neighbourhood plan, the community is able to have more power in terms of what happens in their area.

The plan gives the community more capacity to plan local development, with a say on where new homes, shops and offices should be built and on what those new buildings should look like and to grant planning permission for new buildings the community wants to see, protect open spaces and identify projects the community would like to bring forward.

Mrs Dowdall said councillors would now go through the answers and enter the comments on a spreadsheet. They have hired the help of a professional town planner to formulate the responses and adapt peoples’ thoughts into planning rules for the town in accordance with government regulations.

These new planning policies will then go to referendum for a decision.

As an incentive to get people to fill out the questionnaires, a draw to win a hamper was held.

The lucky winner was announced at a meeting of the full council on Tuesday. Congratulations went to Peter Sulstan, who was the recipient.