THE group behind ambitious plans to set up a national military museum and create 300 jobs in the South West is investigating sites in Cornwall, after claims Okehampton gave it the cold shoulder.

Former airfields in Perranporth and St Merryn are now being considered to house the National Museum of Warfare which is being compared to the Eden Project in scale.

Project initiator, collector and historian Gail Lavigne from The Phoenix Foundation claims no support has been offered by West Devon Borough Council, despite assurances that no financial contribution was needed.

Ms Lavigne said: 'Okehampton is our first, second and third choice for this project because we are based in the borough and it is a military town.

'We sent letters and copies of the details of the project to the local authorities and individual members months ago, but no-one has been in touch. We have been banging our heads against a brick wall.'

Ms Lavigne said the museum project had been nine years in the planning and the group has collected around 200,000 items including 450 military vehicles and 60 aircraft.

She estimated the collection, much of which has been restored, was worth around £70 million.

The American-born historian, who has lived in Tavistock for 25 years, said after the lack of interest in Okehampton, she has considered taking the collection back to America.

'I think the borough council was under the misapprehension that we wanted money, but all we wanted was some backing, support and input in looking for a suitable site,' added Ms Lavigne.

'This is a multi-million pound project which would boost the area, creating jobs in restoration, catering and education as well as tourism — but it seems to be an opportunity Okehampton does not mind missing out on.'

She said the scheme would be going forward for Objective One funding and a team of professionals were working on the bid and business plan.

Ms Lavigne said after the initial lack of response her hopes were raised when Okehampton OK became interested in her idea, but shortly afterwards the company, set up to attract new business to the town, ran out of funding and ceased to function.

Derek Godfrey-Brown, who was a volunteer in the OK office, tried to champion the proposal after hearing an interview about the project.

'With the army camp in town it seemed like the perfect place,' he said.

'I passed the information on to various influential people in the Okehampton area but no-one ever got back to Gail.'

Borough council chief executive David Incoll said The Phoenix Foundation had been talking about an area of 800,000 square feet and there was no natural site for this.

He said: 'A project team like this would normally come to us after they had found a site and discussions had taken place with the landowners, not the other way around.'

He added without a feasibility study or business plan, it was very hard to judge the project, or the number of jobs it would create and felt money would be sought from the council at some stage.

'We just do not have money to spend on a speculative venture of this sort — at the moment it is difficult enough trying to help our existing tourism businesses to survive after foot and mouth,' he said.

Mr Incoll said despite what people believed, the current unemployment rate in Okehampton was low, but what the area needed was 'quality jobs.'

But chairman of Devon and Cornwall Business Council, Tim Jones, said he still felt the 'ambitious' idea could be developed for Okehampton.

Mr Jones, who lives at Belstone, said: 'There was no site allocated for the cheese factory at North Tawton but it was still built and the borough council in the past has always been extremely good at creating opportunities like this.

'This is a creative idea which deserves support and I will be meeting with the project team to see if we can progress it.'