THE MAN at the forefront of plans for a village hall in Chillaton will tell West Devon Borough Council?s Planning Committee next week that the village is dying from the lack of a community centre.

Neil Warrington, who has been championing the case for a village hall for four years, will try to persuade the committee to approve a proposal for a building just outside the village, despite it being recommended for refusal by planning officers.

Since the former hall was condemned and closed in the late 90s and the site sold, many village groups and events have disappeared, said Mr Warrington, who is chairman of the Village Hall Trustees.

?The gardening club has gone, we have no craft or flower show any more and the football club has gone to Lamerton,? he said.

?The village is virtually dying on its feet because we have nowhere for the community to meet.?

Various sites have been looked at over the years but had been deemed unsuitable for one reason or another.

Mr Warrington, who has threatened to resign from the committee if the proposal is refused, said: ?The planning officers always seem to object to what we come up with.

?I have given four years to try and promote this thing and I find that the political will is not really there to make it happen.?

Planning officers feel that the proposed site, near Green Cross, is too far away from the village centre.

They say it would be visually intrusive and affect the residential amenities of adjoining residents in terms of loss of privacy and noise.

?All the reasons for recommending refusal can be argued,? added Mr Warrington.

?The hall would be almost totally screened by trees and hedges and we could not get any nearer to the village centre because there are houses there.?

He added that the population the hall would serve on a regular basis was around 300 people in the parishes of Chillaton and Coryton and adjoining hamlets.

?At the moment everyone either travels out of the village to do anything or they stay at home because they do not have cars,? he said.

?This is not the way to create a thriving community.?

The planning committee is due to consider the application at its meeting on Tuesday.