YOUR report, 'Row flares over strategy vote' (May 20) is extremely disturbing. After three years off the council, I do not think myself qualified to take a balanced overview of the merits of the core strategy proposals, so shall confine myself to the arcane process of substitution, which may well be unfamiliar to some of your readers.

Substitution is a process by which the balance between the various political groups on the council remains reflected on decision-making committees when a member of a committee is unable to attend a meeting. It is not intended to be a device by means of which a group leader or whip can manipulate the probable outcome of an impending decision. Indeed, councillors are strongly discouraged from pre-determining their voting intentions prior to a meeting; it is always unwise and, in some instances expressly prohibited.

Your report says that a councillor claims to have been substituted, implicitly against her will or, at least, without her prior knowledge. That would be entirely contrary to the council's rules of procedure, since the process cannot properly begin until a councillor has intimated that (s)he will be unable to attend a meeting. Such intimation is normally given to his/her group leader or whip, who then tries to arrange a substitution from within the group and advises the committee clerk (usually by email, copied to appropriate others) of the substitution.

Given the level of scrutiny available from such devices as the Freedom of Information Act, it seems unlikely to me that a group leader would attempt to subvert the substitution procedure, particularly since there would be nothing to prevent a councillor so peremptorily substituted from turning up at the meeting and refusing to be substituted. Even more unlikely is it that a chief executive, faced with an allegation of shenanigans of that kind within his council, would go on record as saying that '[the] meeting was properly constituted . . .' without having checked the facts rather carefully.

Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding. There have been far too many red herrings trailed across the path of the core strategy – we can do without this one.

Roger W Mathew

Down Road

Tavistock

LAST December the entire West Devon Borough Council voted on the core strategy. The three Tavistock Liberal Democrat councillors voted against it, because we felt we had been elected to represent the views of local people. We had been lobbied by many residents strongly opposed to the proposed location and density of housing development for Tavistock.

We were also mindful of the proposed road through the historic and environmentally important Crowndale Valley. We were not against having a core strategy per se, just some of the content in relation to Tavistock.

Cllr Adam Bridgewater was unable to attend the meeting of the future planning and housing committee held on April 19. Because of the known importance of the meeting, the Lib Dem Group decided in advance that our substitute should be a councillor from Tavistock, with similar views. That is why I attended the meeting instead of Adam.

Those present will endorse the fact that I participated fully in the meeting and asked numerous questions relating to the proposals for Tavistock, including:

l Did the county council look at options for a road skirting Tavistock, or just the one across the Crowndale Valley? The answer was no: they had only looked at the one joining Plymouth Road and Callington Road.

l Would the railway be guaranteed to be built, and would it be built before all the houses? Again the answer was negative.

Additionally, I asked if the core strategy could be referred to full council and was advised by professional officers that it could not.

I asked the questions — and made the points — that local residents who had contacted us had asked the Tavistock Lib Dem councillors to raise.

Finally, I was one of the four councillors who voted against the strategy.

Cllr Alison Clish-Green

Tavistock South West Ward

West Devon Borough Council

SO now we find that the final core strategy vote saw dissenting committee members substituted without notice.

We also learn that the new coalition government is committed to the rapid abolition of the Regional Spatial Strategies which were often cited as the non-negotiable imperative demanding the construction of thousands of homes and which were beyond the influence of the borough council. There's no such imperative now.

Also, about how the decision making process has been shaped by West Devon Borough Council's desire for county council supplied infrastructure, ie primary school and hospital — will those even get funding now?

We might also wonder about the wisdom of a plan which does absolutely nothing to alleviate the congestion problems Tavistock already has and indeed which can only further exacerbate those problems.

But beyond all of that, while the weather is fine I urge residents to take a stroll up onto the Down, perhaps to the cricket club and gaze westward at the beautiful Crowndale Valley and the low hill that rises behind the farm and canal. Imagine how this view will look with dense housing and other mixed development strewn all over it.

If you feel strongly about this, please register your disquiet before June 11 via West Devon Borough Council's rather unwieldy website or just write to them.

The document you are commenting on is called Schedule of Focused changes. The proposals (and any criticisms of them) go off for consideration by an independent planning inspector after that so any relevant points made will be considered.

Guy Sergeant

Whitchurch Road

Tavistock