A?SCHEME to create a new primary school, supermarket, 60 houses and a park and ride service in Okehampton is not needed, say leading town and parish councillors.

The scheme, put together by the Hunt Group, has been criticised by the chair of Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council Derek Webber and Okehampton town mayor Cllr the Rev Mike Davies. The plans fall within the Okehampton Hamlets boundary.

The proposals were on show last week at an exhibition at the White Hart Hotel. They offer a six-acre site for a 420-pupil school with an 82-metre by 49-metre sports pitch on land to the south of Exeter Road, adjacent to Hare Tor Close and White Tor Close.

In terms of size, the school plans are similar to those at the previous school site, which was allocated for housing by West Devon Borough Council last year.

A development of 60 houses is proposed to go next to the new school, to the south of Monkey Puzzle Drive and Moorcroft Close. To the south of the school and housing developments, there would be a site for a 'glamour camping' site, with yurts and wigwams. The proposed new supermarket would cover 30,000 square feet.

The Hunt Group presented similar plans in a public consultation last year. The biggest change to those plans is the expansion of a proposed park and ride facility into a coach park and park and ride facility.

Cllr Webber said: 'Okehampton has enough going on within the core strategy, with 100 houses planned per year for the next twelve years.

'This development is not needed, especially where it is. Okehampton will be adequately supplied for the coming years.'

Cllr the Rev Mike Davies criticised the plan's design. He said: 'I could see nothing different from what was presented to me twelve months ago.

'To have to drive through a housing estate to reach a primary school does not make sense. To have a camp site in close proximity to a primary school is ridiculous.

'A lot of the facts do not add up. As far as I am concerned this proposal is not likely to go anywhere. The site is protected under the core planning strategy so it will not go any further.

'Although this falls outside the boundary of the town council I believe that if the proposal were to proceed at any level it would be detrimental to the town.'

Paul Hunt, director of the Hunt Group, confirmed a decision will be made in the next six months as to whether a firm planning application will be made to West Devon Borough Council within the next year.

He said: 'It's been very positive, much more positive than last year. What we've attempted to do is mould the scheme this time to things people mentioned last year. The big change this time is the coach park, with a park and ride facility with minibuses bringing tourists down into the town.

'We've done a lot of research on that because the Devon Tourist Board said that Okehampton is not even on tour operators' routes now. People don't stop here, they just drive past on the A30.

'So we calculate that you could get 200 people into town on four coaches every day, for about two or three hours. If they spent £5 each, that's £6,000 for six days a week coming into Okehampton.'

Before the consultation event, the Hunt Group circulated an 'Okehampton Chronicle' leaflet around every house in the town, stating Okehampton Primary School has 'nearly 600 children' and has been 'turning children away'. The school has a capacity for 593 children, and currently has 532 on roll, with room for 61 more pupils. No children have been turned away due to the school being full.

He said: 'If we made a mistake, at the end of the day you can't get it right all the time, we can only go on the information that we were given, and we wouldn't misquote something.

'At the end of the day, we are saying, you can have the land for the school now or in five years. But let's not forget you are going to need one, basically.'