RESIDENTS from the Bere Peninsula are preparing to take thei next step in the creation of a community plan to help shape the future of their parish.

The project has the support of Bere Ferrers Parish Council and the completed plan will be used by West Devon Borough Council as evidence when considering development proposals for the area.

For the last two years the residents' team have been working to develop a questionnaire-based survey. The 12-page questionnaire booklet will shortly be distributed to all households within Bere Ferrers Parish, the fourth largest community in West Devon.

The community plan is a response to the Government's localism policy. The aim is to document and present the views and preferences of residents in and around Bere Alston and Bere Ferrers as to how they would like their community to develop.

The questionnaires will be delivered on or after September 25, with the closing date for completed returns being October 31.

Mike Benson, on behalf of the Bere Peninsula Plan Group, which is organising the survey, said: 'We have made the questionnaire as user- friendly as possible. That includes making it as easy as possible for residents to return their completed booklets, with collection boxes sited across the Peninsula.

'A series of drop- in sessions will be held to encourage responses, and to help residents out with any explanations that might be required. They can also complete the questionnaire online.

'We are urging everyone to respond. The plan, when we begin to draft it, will have to represent the circumstances and wishes of the local community, and it cannot do that unless the members of that community tell us what those circumstances and wishes are, giving us some sound information to support the plan.'

Popular themes and issues arising from the analysis of the survey responses will then be the subject of discussion at community consultation events, to be held in Bere Alston and Bere Ferrers.

Those debates will serve to identify public concerns and aspirations and, if possible, outline future projects, all to be presented in the community plan document. The group hopes to produce a draft of the plan by spring 2014.