THE villages of Bridestowe and Sourton are teaming up to create a parish plan to benefit residents of both parishes.

The parish councils of both villages have united to create a joint parish plan through a consultation called 'What do both our communities want to meet future needs in Bridestowe and Sourton'.

The plan will be formulated through public consultation, identifying the needs and aspirations of residents of both villages, and then will set out the actions on how these aims can be achieved.

A public meeting will be held later this month and a questionnaire will be circulated to houses in both parishes to try and find out what people would like to see in the area in the future. Funding for the project has been provided by Devon County Council, West Devon Borough Council and both parish councils.

Chairman of Bridestowe Parish Council, John Leonard, said: 'The idea for a combined plan came about from both parish councils coming together and realising that many of the issues affecting one parish affect the other in the same way.

'Things like transport, planning, health services, things that are important to people and may need to be addressed in a parish plan. We thought it was best to do a joint plan so the issues affecting both parishes can be put into it.

'Of course, there will be parts of the plan exclusive to Sourton or Bridestowe respectively, but we all thought it was just much more sensible to combine our efforts and work together.

'The thing we want to stress more than anything is we don't want this to be solely a parish council thing.

'We want the community and residents to get fully involved, and the emphasis is very much on that. The whole point of this process is to find out what people want from the future.

'Much of the focus will be on localism. Services we rely on from the county and borough may not be there in the future, and devolved down to parish council level. So we want to find out how people may want these services to work.'

Chairman of Sourton Parish Council, John Hockridge, said: 'Our two parishes seem to be working very well together. Though we are both very independent parishes, there are a number of issues that affect us both. Education is one, with many of the youngsters in Sourton going to Bridestowe Primary School, it is very important to people in Sourton and we want to see the school survive and do well.

'Sourton lost its post office years ago, and the post office in Bridestowe serves a lot of people from Sourton and a wider area. That is something else vitally important to both parishes. Transport issues are also shared, and it is these sort of things we are looking at together.

'We want to get parishioners there and working on their ideas to guide this. Though this is a parish council led plan, we want to get the community very much involved, and really shape this whole thing. That is very important.'

The meeting takes place on Monday, February 25 at Bridestowe Methodist Hall from 7.30pm. The speaker will be Martin Rich from the Devon Association of Parish Councils. Residents of both parishes are welcome to attend.