I HAVE with interest the ongoing articles in your paper concerning the borough's core strategy. Holes can be picked in every possible way of increasing the housing stock of our area with every conceivable option having pros and cons.
For example, building the required number of houses to satisfy demand by placing them away from Tavistock and Okehampton would not create any cheaper housing at all when you consider the cost of putting any remotely large number of houses in places that would require major infrastructure works to be carried out, at great cost, to things such as the mains sewerage system.
Let us not forget either that many villages will never have a realistic chance of having many of these houses because they either fall under the planning rules governing Dartmoor National Park or they would be placed in out of the way areas without the roads to cope with the increased traffic.
Placing them in/around the two major towns would not create as much extra traffic on our roads as placing them away from towns, leaving even more people to have drive to their nearest supermarket, whereas on the edge of the towns it would make for a more feasible increase in circular bus services.
Not to have these houses is not a realistic option. The (median) average house price in West Devon already exceeds the (median) average income by a factor of almost ten times, way out of the range of many locals, especially youngsters, the lifeblood of any community.
With no sign of any let up in the migration to our beautiful area, without these extra, mostly low cost, houses we would see our borough become a middle class enclave before long and who'd serve us our skinny lattes in the local bistro cafés if the working classes are pushed out of the area and can no longer provide the required staff?
There is no easy answer to this conundrum, but the core strategy intends to chart the least bad way through an unfortunate situation. I can but hope the council members stick to their guns and show the planning inspector that the other options on the table are even less realistic.
Dave Goodwin
Cleave Cottage
Sticklepath