ELECTORS in Tavistock will next month have the chance to cast a vote on the future of their town.

A local referendum is to be held over controversial plans to build 750 houses and a link road through the Tavy Valley. The decision for a poll came after almost 100 people voted for one at a public meeting last week.

Electors will be asked if the proposals by West Devon Borough Council are unacceptable. It follows much criticism over the council's Local Development Framework Core Strategy document which shows how Tavistock and West Devon as a whole will develop over the next 15 years.

The poll will be held on Thursday, August 13 and people will have the opportunity to cast their vote between 4pm and 9pm at Tavistock Parish Church Centre, Tavistock Methodist Church Hall or Whitchurch Village Hall.

Campaigners, who claim the strategy will be a disaster for the area and have gained support from some town and borough councillors, felt officers from West Devon Council who attended the meeting last Wednesday had failed to reassure people that the plans would work.

A total of 87 people demanded a parish poll be held on the subject, with two voting against and eight abstentions.

Member of the Tavy Valley Protection Group Jeremy Davies said the turnout at the meeting was 'fantastic': 'People came from all over the place to express themselves very clearly against it. The overall feeling was unquestionably that the thrust of the argument as it stands is wrong and that the dispersal settlement strategy that was in place before should be back in place.'

Opponents say small numbers of homes should be distributed throughout the borough and not all centred in the main towns of Tavistock and Okehampton. They say that would create large urban-style developments and associated services away from the town centre. And they claim the link road will decimate the Tavy Valley, dramatically changing the appearance of the south west edge of the town.

Mr Davies said a certain amount of sympathy had been expressed for the borough council which was having to interpret the 'regional spacial strategy' dictated by Central Government.

'We understand this is a hot potato and they are trying to square the circle, but this plan flies in the face of the council's own policies to protect the landscape.'

The core strategy document has recently been out for consultation but the final decision will lay with a planning inspector. The results of a parish poll will be purely advisory and the inspector is not bound to act on it.

Mayor of West Devon Alison Clish-Green, who originally voted for the core strategy document, said the Tavy or Crowndale Valley was the last 'green lung' of Tavistock.

'Over the last 20 years I have seen more and more green fields covered up and I still believe there is scope to provide affordable housing on brownfield sites, as infill, in derelict buildings and in empty shops,' she said.

Mrs Clish-Green said she voted in favour of the proposals on the assurance from officers that it would go out for consultation so people would have an opportunity to challenge the content.

Chief executive of West Devon Borough Council David Incoll said the authority had listened to people's views and 26% of the housing had been dispersed around the villages: 'The problem we have is that many of the larger villages in this area are in the Dartmoor National Park and we cannot take these into the allocation.'

He said the borough council had tackled Dartmoor National Park Authority and argued the case for housing to be built in the national park village of Yelverton because of its shops and services but it did not get anywhere.

'Neither can you plonk a lot of houses in a very small village where it has no capacity to cope in terms of things like the sewerage system,' he said.

There are no polling cards issued for a parish poll but the borough council has urged everyone who has a view either for or against the proposals to vote on the day. They will be asked the question: 'Do you agree that the West Devon Borough Council proposals to site 750 houses and other facilities in the Tavy Valley on the south west side of Tavistock with a new road is unsound, unsustainable and therefore unacceptable.'

But while the result of any poll gives a clear indication of electors' opinion, it is not binding on the planning inspector.