RECESSION-hit businesses who collectively paid more than £50,000 to advertise in a West Devon Borough Council brochure, which they claim few people saw, are demanding their money back.

Traders complained to the borough council because they had no response from the advertisements they placed in planning information packs throughout the whole of 2009.

But the council says there was only a period of six weeks in which the booklets were not handed out from its Tavistock headquarters.

The packs were supposed to be issued with planning application forms but businesses claim this has not happened and many hundreds of pounds each had spent in advertising had been 'a waste of money'.

West Devon builder Brian Piper said he paid £740 for an advertisement to run for two years: 'I gave it a great deal of thought but I decided that it would be an excellent way of advertising. It would have been had it been distributed.'

Mr Piper said in the course of his work he called at the planning office on several occasions and picked up application forms but was never given the information pack. On the last occasion he asked for the pack and the receptionist did not know he was talking about, he said.

'She said she had never seen any information packs so I asked to see a senior person who found some upstairs and said they were handed out with planning approval notices.

'That is not what we were told would happen and what good are the folders once planning permission is given? Most people will have chosen their builder by then.'

He added that in a time of recession, those funds could have been put to better use: 'There is no doubt that I have lost business because of this — that money would have bought me a lot of newspaper advertising and enquiries for work.'

Matt Bonfield from Hilton building supplies at Moretonhampstead said this was one of those advertisements that was much more expensive than he would normally look at but it appeared to give the opportunity for substantial results.

'To hear that the booklets have not been given out is very disturbing. Our advert was paid for two years as well, which finishes this month. We are pretty upset about this.'

The borough council said hundreds of the pre-application planning booklets had been sent out since 2008 but there was a temporary period of around six weeks last year when they were not handed out from the Tavistock reception when visitors went in to pick up planning application forms.

'This was at a time when we were moving to our new customer service centre, which unavoidably caused some disruption,' said a spokesperson for the council.

'Two advertisers complained to us directly at that time and we have apologised for this oversight. However, it should be made clear that the booklets were still being sent out with planning application forms and decision notices.'

The spokesperson added that an increasing number of planning applicants were downloading application forms from the council's website and the booklet was also being made available online within the next month.

'The booklet is produced at no cost to the council tax payer as it is paid for by advertising revenue.'