WELL said, Chris Dicker, Chris Saville and Catherine Trafford-Smith (Letters, March 21). We are all sick of the planning spin bucketed out to us recently in connection with the proposed 750 new homes and the railway re-instatement. Despite endless enquiries and presentations which have met with negative response, the Core Strategy trundles on regardless.

Despite Tavistock Town Council's rejection of the plans, local residents are being steam-rollered into this development which has not been properly thought through, especially the total lack of any of the originally promised infrastructure. This was very evident in the recent West Devon Borough Council planning consultation in the town hall on March 21 and the Bovis Homes presentation at the Bedford Hotel.

In my letter to the Times in August 2009, I pointed out the fact that in the last ten years Tavistock has seen an explosion of home building resulting in approximately 500 new homes and has, since then, continued with probably a further 200 homes on the Manor House and Montgomery Drive developments, not to mention the large development on Buzzard Road and many small developments like the 13 new homes behind Morrisons in Phillpot Lane. All this and no new infrastructure investment by the council!  

Surely the town has, since the development of the Core Strategy, already produced more homes for the national housing stock than are required by Central Government? 

C D C Challis

Gulworthy

AN extraordinary comment by Cllr Ted Sherrell (as reported in 'Town council will home in on Bovis plans', Times, March 21): 'Most of the town members on West Devon Borough Council were against (the proposed plan to build 750 houses in Tavistock) and it was sold on the story that it would provide a vast amount of money for the railway, school, hospital and relief road — and slowly but surely, the houses remain and the infrastructure has suddenly slipped into the background. It's been a con...' (my italics).

What are we to make of this?

Kevin Ross

via email

IN response to the letters from Dorothy Kirk, Chris Dicker and others, I both agree and disagree with some of the sentiments. However, having looked closely at the documentation held by Devon County Council and West Devon Borough Council, it is clear that at no time have those who are proposing this venture consulted with Network Rail, the HSE or the rail operators. What they have therefore missed is that it is illegal to run more than one train on a closed loop single rail system. It is impossible and quite illegal to attempt to run a train to Gunnislake and a train to Tavistock at the same time.

Even if the rolling stock could be found to support this idea it is not feasible without a further £2-million plus extra investment in signalling for the routes. It follows that without this signalling, with the best will in the world and assuming that both stations are to operate, the frequency of trains from Tavistock will be one every 2.5 hours.

I believe that the firm which has proposed to build this line has never been solely responsible for a branch line but only for the construction of sidings. The decisions have been made between the county and borough councils and the construction company, none of whom have in-depth knowledge of railway permanent way operations.

I have provided all county and borough councillors with a full breakdown of the rationale for the above in greater depth than I have done here and have been contacted by many concerned Councillors. Cllr Debo Sellis phoned me, and contrary to the feelings indicated by Chris Dicker, her response demonstrated that she was very concerned and intended to investigate much further. I feel confident that she is a councillor who will run with this issue as she has done before on issues relating to this.

Certainly, if this project goes ahead, £15-million of county council (our) money will be spent supporting one commuter train daily to Plymouth. This will be the costliest commuter train in the entire world. Maybe we could get in the Guinness Book of Records with this and put Tavistock on the map?

For the record, I have worked as a safety adviser with British Rail managing branch lines and as a consultant for the last 15 years and I love railways.

Cllr Brian A A Trew

TTC Councillor (Independent, South Ward)