PARISH councils have been thanked for playing a vital part in the new district local plan process regarding future uses of the Castle Hospital site.

Joan Pauley, vice-chairman of the Okehampton Locality Planning Group, said support from parish councils was the push needed to get West Devon Borough Council to write a proposal into its new local plan to retain the site for medical uses, when it is sold.

The Castle Hospital will be put up for auction later this year when the new £4-million Okehampton community hospital opens, but health experts in the town want to provide intermediate care for vulnerable groups in the community and people discharged from hospital who need to be catered for before

returning home.

It follows concern over the number of nursing homes closing and cuts in Devon County Council's Social Services to provide care in the community.

At a meeting of Okehampton Locality Planning Group in November, members decided to ask local parish councils to write to the borough council asking for planning constraints to be put on the building and site.

Miss Pauley, a borough councillor who has been at the forefront of the campaign to keep the hospital site for medical uses, said letters had been received from parish councils in Sampford Courtenay, Gidleigh, Okehampton, Okehampton Hamlets, North Tawton and Hatherleigh and others.

Miss Pauley said: 'The support from the area gave it a real push and now we have something in writing in the district local plan which will restrict the kind of development we have on that site.

'I would like to thank every parish which wrote a letter.'

The district local plan dictates what will happen in the area in terms of development over the next ten years.