A PRIME sight alongside the main road at Mary Tavy belonging to a well established local coach firm could be turned into a housing development.

Planning permission is being sought from Dartmoor National Park Authority to build 18 houses with car parking on the current Downs Garage.

The site is situated on the junction of Brentor Road and the main A386 Tavistock to Okehampton road.

Mr and Mrs Clifford Down have applied to DNPA planners to build four, two-bedroomed houses, 13 three-bedroomed houses and one four-bedroomed house.

Currently the site is used to park vehicles belonging to C J Down Coaches with room for 10 cars and 12 coaches. The plans include creating 25 parking spaces to serve the housing scheme and village facilities.

Coryton architects Scarrett and Martyn have drawn up the plans which were submitted as part of the application to planners last month.

Mr Down, the owner of C J Down Coaches, told the Times: 'It is early days and nothing has yet been decided so there is nothing more to say at this stage.'

The two sites belonging to Down's Garage — the other being a triangle of land on the other side of Brentor Road — are, along with the former Blackdown Garage on the opposite side of the A386, part of the local plan adopted by Dartmoor National Park Authority and Mary Tavy Parish Council in July 2013 for the village's housing development.

Chris Hart, the DNPA's team planning manager, said: 'These two important sites, along with the former Blackdown Garage site, are earmarked to build residential or mixed use development which will include affordable housing to meet local needs and parking space to serve the village shop and post office.

'We are also looking at traffic calming measures.'

Such initiatives for a housing development on the Blackdown Garage site were proposed as early as 1998 and in 2008 a developer was given permission but it did not materialise.

The Dartmoor National Park Authority is now seeking the views of Mary Tavy Parish Council and putting the matter out to public consultation on the Downs Garage sites.

The plans could go before Dartmoor planning members in early March.