MR Owen in his letter (March 2) and Mr Pritchard (March 9) asked some questions and made some comments about the applications for outline planning permission for a proposed new village hall at Bridestowe.

Ten sites were considered in depth. After detailed discussions with various owners and the planning officer, eight of those sites have been rejected by the village hall management committee, all for very good reasons which are public knowledge!

We are now left with two possibilities for 2000, the existing site and the school playing field.

In this imperfect world no site is perfect. If there is to be a new hall there may well have to be a compromise. We are only at the outline stage.

If it is to be the existing site the compromise has already commenced because the outline planning application is for a hall the same size as the existing but not bigger. It would be for similar community use but not greater use as was presented in August 1999.

If it is to be the schools site the compromise will be accepting the offer made by the headmaster, school governors and Devon County Council for providing a site with some conditions attached to help the school.

All the conditions are still to be negotiated by the committee if we receive outline planning permission. The committee are no doubt willing to compromise but are not willing to entirely capitulate, which has been suggested!

The ideas for the design for the chosen site are still to be brought together after consultation with all the interested parties and most of the points raised are already being considered.

By the end of last week there had been eight formal objections to the school site and three to the existing site sent to the council planning department. The most salient point is that there has been only one letter of support for either application from any individual in the village of Bridestowe.

I understand that our parish council is not objecting but supporting both sites. There is a very real danger that the objectors will rule the day!

As chairman of the sub-committee working for this project, I ask individuals and every organisation to write to the village hall committee to pass on to the planning officer or to him direct to express positive support for one site or the other; otherwise the WDBC planning committee will get the distinct impression that a new hall is not wanted in Bridestowe!

We will have no hall after October 2000 unless we can show the council licencing officer that we are making progress towards a new hall. The very last date for the planning officer to receive objections or support is Friday March 24. It is up to Bridestowe, now.

David C Porter

Millaton Cottage

Bridestowe