Residents have called for a high street demolition site to be either brought back into use or its increasingly ugly appearance reduced.

The protest comes as the owner of the so-called ‘hole in the high street’ has promised the now ‘blot on the landscape’ will be transformed into a new shop.

Husband and wife Stephen and Lesley Evans overlook the former Woolies site, between Market Road and Brook Street, in Tavistock, and have added their voices to the call for the plot to be developed or boarded up.

Other concerns include the impact on the overall trading environment and a potential loss of business rate income.

The couple, who have lived on Dolvin Road, for 12 years, value their house for its long back garden which runs down the River Tavy and its front outlook onto the tree-lined cemetery.

However, their outlook is now blighted by the view of the wire fences behind which a pile of broken bricks and dumped rubbish on the other side of the river alongside Market Road, next to the newly opened Granito Lounge.

They say the other side of the site on Brook Street has been boarded off from view by hoardings with artwork and are now asking for the same on Market Road.

Stephen said: “The frontage on to Brook Street, though lacking any shop front, was successfully made attractive by artwork on a plain hoarding, but it is a very different story when viewed from Market Road, where open mesh Harris fencing reveals what amounts to a tip, where bricks, concrete and other spoil from the redevelopment of the adjoining Granito Lounge has been dumped, along with other debris and rubbish.”

The couple have written to MP Sir Geoffrey Cox and their West Devon borough councillor, suggesting enforcement action be taken against the landowner for allowing dumping of non-permitted materials from elsewhere and for the Market Road side to be screened.

Stephen said: “It is from the building works involved in the conversion (next door) that materials have been dumped onto the Woolworths site, creating an eyesore for anyone using Market Road and for those residents of Dolvin Road, like ourselves, whose gardens overlook that eyesore from across the river.

“Can it perhaps be said that the use of the site as a tip for materials from another property altogether gives the council cause to take action or the opportunity to charge rates in respect of that use?”

There have been drainage issues with the site which Taunton Land has sought to address.

John Sloman, of Taunton Land, said: “We will be starting to build a retail outlet at 51-55 Brook Street from the spring.”

He would not identify the business who would occupy the buildings.

He said unauthorised rubbish dumpers were responsible for the refuse offending residents and explained the delay in development was caused by waiting for the right to alter the existing building occupied by Superdrug on Brook Street.

Planning permission was granted in 2019 for the site to be developed for retail use.