HOUSEHOLDERS might have been worried by the suggestion in your columns last week (Conservation under Spotlight: Times, September 9) that Tavistock's new Conservation Management Plan would require them to 'jump through a load more hoops' if they wanted to make changes to their homes.

This is not true. The Plan would not change the law on planning. Obviously, if you want to alter the look of your home in a Conservation Area, such as the old parts of this historic town, you have to follow the planning rules. They include the need 'to have due regard to the setting of the Conservation Area.'

But this is old hat, it is nothing new; it goes back as far as I can remember. It can be an onerous duty — it means you can't replace timber or lead with cheap plastic, or old tiles with corrugated iron. But most people think it right that a high standard of building should be kept in a conservation area. Most of us in Tavistock are proud of the heart of their town and do not wish it to be spoiled by gimcrack development.

So we look to our local authorities to do three things; to preserve the town's beauty and attraction to visitors, to make the town more prosperous by promoting the local economy, and thirdly to have a plan and know clearly how they intend to achieve these two key objectives. You don't set off on a long journey without a road-map, or at least a sat nav. This long-awaited and much-needed new management plan for Tavistock's town centre is just such a sat nav, offered to the townspeople as a good way of steering development into the future.

It is an ambitious document and may not all be within our means —even with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund which the borough council intends to seek. That said; it is surely worth a try?

Our local authorities have a choice — either stagnation, to let the property developers swamp the town, and lose all our charm and beauty in a swamp of shabby, piecemeal, ugly building; or to have a vision to know where we want to go, and a clear plan to preserve the best of our past while welcoming the best of the future.

Dick Eberlie,

Chairman of the Partnership Committee.