ROADS and housing provision for young people were the hot issues when West Devon's blueprint for future development went before the public in Okehampton last week.

Three exhibitions held in North Tawton, Tavistock and Okehampton were staged to seek views from local residents on the changes in the second deposit of West Devon Borough Council's Local Plan.

Okehampton is earmarked for 810 new homes over the next ten years and the major concern from local people is the inadequacy of the road layout to cope with all the additional traffic.

Some people visiting the exhibition said the borough council had put 'the cart before the horse' in proposing new housing before a relief road to take traffic away from the town centre was in the pipeline.

But they were pleased the borough council had specified the need for a relief road in its local plan and would be disagreeing with the county council — which took the view that Okehampton did not have a traffic problem — at the local plan public inquiry.

Richard Jefferies, who owns Yer Tiz Caravan Park, said traffic congestion was a problem: 'The whole road layout needs to be looked at and I support the borough council in highlighting this issue and asking for improvements,' he said.

Victor Lenton from Barton Road said getting the infrastructure right was of vital importance: 'I do not see how development can be planned before the road system is in place,' he said. 'I think there will be too many houses in Okehampton — where are all these people going to work?'

Roy Radford from South Zeal said with no indication of where a relief road or access roads to new developments were going, people were being asked to support something blindly.

He and many others also raised concerns about housing for young local people: 'Anyone earning £15,000 to £17,000 can afford nothing beyond £60,000 and what can you buy for that around here,' he said. 'We need measures now to help accommodate people's housing needs not in a few years time.'

Trevor and Tricia Pring, who moved to Okehampton from the Midlands, said properties like theirs in Okemoor Park were fetching £30,000 more than they did just seven months ago: 'We live in a bungalow and the last one went for £162,000, ' said Mrs Pring.

'We feel lucky to have bought when we did. But it's the local youngsters who want to get a foot on the property ladder we feel sorry for because the wages down here are just not compatible with the house prices.'

Head of planning and development Stephen Gill said the new policy was such that 40 per cent of any new developments with 15 or more houses in towns would be affordable housing.

He said other councils would be carrying out similar policies and in the South Hams, where house prices were soaring, 60 per cent of new developments would have to be affordable homes.

'People will be pleased to know that we have already introduced affordable housing as part of new estates but the current policy is 20 per cent,' he said.

'Over the past year £350,000 of affordable housing has been created throughout the borough.'

The cost of this type of housing, whether for rent or purchase, will be based on figures given by local people in a housing needs survey which was carried out by the borough council.

Cllr Margaret Garton said the borough council needed to provide 330 affordable homes a year to meet the current backlog and the new policy would go a long way to addressing that problem.

She said Okehampton was destined to grow but as well as a mixture of housing sites, the plan identified new industrial land and a new site for a primary school, which was one of the big wants in the town.

'The views about the relief road have been taken on board and we have put it in the strongest terms possible that we want that requirement from Devon County Council,' she said.

People have until May 22 to give views on the latest changes made within the local plan — the document is currently available in the borough council offices in Okehampton and Tavistock and town libraries.