AN ambituous plan for 110 major transport improvements in the county including utilising the railway line between Tavistock and Bere Alston and a package of small scale improvements on the A386 has been back by Devon County Council.

Last week the county council’s cabinet approved a programme of instructure improvements across the county that can be progressed once the coronavirus outbreak is under control.

It also approved a capital programme of investments of £95-million over the next two years, with over half being spent on the North Devon Link Road improvement scheme.

Of the £95-million of investment, £90.91-million comes from external sources including grants and developer contributions.

Cllr Andrea Davis, cabinet member for infrastructure, said: ‘It is important we look to the future and develop programmes that can be progressed when we return to normality and to help the economy of Devon recover.’

In West Devon plans include the utilisation of the railway line for sustainable travel between Tavistock and Bere Alston and cycle link to the Tamar Trail Centre and a package of small-scale improvements along the A386 between Tavistock and Plymouth including Yelverton Park and Charge and in the north of the borough a daily rail service between Okehampton and Exeter, a new £3-million road link between Exeter road and Crediton Road and improvements to the traffic flow in the town centre.

The cabinet unanimously approved the budgets for the schemes, the revised capital programme and the updated Transportation Infrastructure Plan which runs until 2030, but questions though were raised about how realistic some of the bold and ambitious plans would be, particularly in light of the coronavirus situation in the UK.

Cllr Philip Sanders said: ‘The county council is committed to pushing ahead with these schemes and that’s really positive but none of us knows what the national or world economy will be after coronavirus so it is very hard to give a timescale to anything.’

He said reinstating the railway between Tavistock and Bere Alston was still very much on the agenda as the authority had applied for money from the Government’s Beeching Reversal Fund to look into its feasibility but the council was also looking at other sustainable travel options between Tavistock to Bere Alston as the costs had now risen to in the region of £100-million.