HOW exciting to read, at long last, of new plans for the Old Mill in Okehampton. However, my pleasure in this news was somewhat tempered when I read what the plans were.

A training centre —excellent! We need training for not only school leavers but also young unemployed and older returnees, people who've been made redundant and need to retrain and long term unemployed. But what sort of 'retraining'?

The Okement centre offers computing skills, just saved from closure I believe . . . .we need metal fabrication, mechanics, agricultural machinery repair skills. Practical skills for a rural area! Will there be workshops for these?

A gallery. Does the museum not offer gallery hanging space to local artists and photographers? Artist studio space with adjacent hanging/ display space  could be useful. Has any research been done amongst local artists to see if this is actually viable?

Does the town need two such places?

A café . . . hmmm, how many cafés does one town need?  Many colleges open a café on their own premises for staff and students to enjoy the food produced by students, as Exeter does very successfully. Maybe this would be the better option

Small business units? Again, the business centre up at Stockley has many such units; are these all let? The board at the entrance would suggest not. Opportunities for those who work at home to use a drop-in centre for meetings etc, another excellent idea.

Meeting rooms, again, the Okement Centre is not able to find enough clients for their rooms, the museum has a meeting room and another unit for which they have been searching a tenant.

Where is the performance space with wonderful acoustics that we desperately need in Okehampton, rehearsal rooms for community theatre, music and singing groups?

So, although we desperately need the Old Mill to be revived and restored as a self-funding community entity, I just hope this is not going to be another white elephant that our precious town and charitable resources are destined to bail out year after year.

Jan Goffey

via email