BUSINESS tenants at a site in Okehampton sold off by West Devon Borough Council fear they could be left stranded in April if they have no new premises to move into. The three workshop tenants at Oaklands Drive have been asked to sign a new short-term lease ? but say they have been given no guarantee that proposed new units on the Exeter Road Industrial Estate will be ready for them in seven months time. The council has sold off the site at Oaklands Drive, which also housed the former council offices, to McCarthy and Stone. A residential development for the elderly is to be built on the land. Money from the sale has helped fund a refurbishment and extension programme at the council?s Kilworthy Park site in Tavistock which will become the venue for all council meetings in the future. A new customer service depot has also been opened in Okehampton?s East Street as a point of contact for residents north of the borough. Maintenance builder Ian Barker, who has rented a workshop at Oaklands Drive for nine years, said if he signed the lease, all his security would be taken away: ?At the moment we are in No Mans Land, our contract ran out in June and either we sign the lease or look for alternative premises. ?I cannot win either way. ?I have no security if I sign the lease because I don?t know if the new unit will be ready, and there are no other suitable units available in Okehampton. ?Most of my work is here in town and if I get a unit in Launceston I will have to travel 30 miles each way to the workshop plus extra miles to Okehampton. It just does not make sense.? Steel fabricator George Mills, who has rented a unit at Oaklands Drive for seven years, said he felt he had no choice but to look for alternative accommodation. He said: ?I will be paying four times the rent I am at the moment which I cannot really afford ? but what choice do I have? ?There is every possibility that through the winter work could be delayed on the new units and they will not be ready in time. I cannot take that chance.? Mr Mills said he had objected to the planning application to turn the site into housing but his views had been ?ignored?. ?All the way along I feel I have not been able to put my points forward ? we just want to be treated fairly by the council.? Head of economic development Tim Beavon said the council was close to an agreement which would enable work units to be built at Exeter Road and he hoped work would start in late October. ?I understand the nervousness of tenants because we cannot give them a cast iron reassurance it will be done by April ,? he said. ?But it should give them some degree of comfort that FOCSA, who run our waste collection service, are also based there and are being relocated to the same site ? we are not going to do anything that means we cannot run this service.? Mr Beavon said the council could have given the tenants notice to vacate the premises sooner but it was trying to work with them to come up with an alternative option.
