OUR planners and masters excelled themselves recently. (Okehampton Times June 20).
Not content with demolishing our loo in Fairplace Park, another seven outlying conveniences in Lifton, Northlew, Buckland Monachorum, Sampford Courtenay, South Zeal, Bere Ferrers and Milton Abbot will be bolted and barred against us, and the promise of more (or less) to come. And nothing provided in lieu (if you will pardon the pun).
You may have noticed that there is a lot of talk about basic human rights these days. Well, you cannot get much more basic than this, can you! Is this bureaucracy gone completely mad? To save a paltry £9,000?
We are informed by Mr David Inman, West Devon deputy chief executive, that 'the time has come for difficult decisions to be taken', and 'the more we delay the greater the problem will be'.
Oh yes? Try telling that to a frantic tourist driving from Northlew to Sampford Courtenay to South Zeal in search of a functional loo, after having been encouraged to visit West Devon by the self same council. He will be impressed. And surely, with the population of West Devon rising together with the amount of lager consumed, our need is more not less.
There is something very odd going on here. Why is it that in Okehampton we can spend money like sailors on shore leave, but a few miles out of town and we are as poor as church mice? Is it not possible to move some of this money sideways to accommodate our country cousins, or is it all in the wrong computer?
In the name of common sense, not to mention decency, let us hope that the West Devon Council will think again.
Richard G Williamson
Castle Road
Okehampton