ORGANISERS of last weekend's community planning event in Tavistock say more than 2,000 people visited the exhibition marquee on Bedford Square.

The event, run by Tavistock and District Market Towns Initiative, was held to find out what people on the street would like to see happening in and around the town in the future.

John Taylor, vice chairman of the group, said: 'It went extremely well, we had at least a couple of thousand people there — we were full all day.

'We asked everyone who came in to put down two comments on Post-It notes about what they would like to see in the town.

'At the end of the week, these will be handed over to consultants who will analyse them and out of that, we will produce an action plan for the area.'

Mr Taylor said the idea proved very popular with the public, as they could also see what other people had written.

He said those who visited the marquee seemed to think the idea was a good method of public consultation.

Mr Taylor said: 'We were busy all day, it was super. We feel it was a very successful day.'

In the marquee there were exhibition boards including presentations by Tavistock Forward, WestDEN and youth organisations in the area.

This exhibition moved to Horrabridge on Tuesday and the Nicholls Hall in Lydford yesterday (Wednesday), while a similar event ran in Tavistock Library all week.

Mr Taylor said the action plan which will be drawn up as a result of the public consultation will be forwarded to the Regional Development Agency.

Smaller, 'early win' projects will be identified for which funding can be obtained — money for major projects would go to a 'brokerage table'.

Tavistock and the surrounding area was chosen by the Government as part of the South West RDA's Market and Coastal Town's Initiative for special support to access funding — deputy prime minister John Prescott said last year up to £1-million could be obtained for each area.

Tavistock is one of the pilot areas to be chosen in this way — already funding has been awarded to employ a worker in the town specialising in funding applications.

The Tavistock MCTI group are due to meet again this Saturday at Tavistock College, when they will hold workshops identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the area, a vision for the future over the next 20 years and action to attain that vision.