THE future of West Devon Borough Council’s northern outreach service in Okehampton is still up in the air, as councillors voted on Tuesday to defer the decision — for the second time — to allow for further review of all the customer services borough wide.

At a meeting of the full council, members approved a recommendation by the hub committee to undertake a review of the customer services as a whole, in Okehampton and Tavistock, to be better informed to make a decision on the proposed closure of the outreach service. The findings of the review are set to be delivered to the hub committee at its meeting on November 5 and a final decision to be made by full council at its December meeting.

A motion was originally agreed in July to close the northern outreach service but the decision was ‘called in’ by opposing Okehampton borough councillors to be reviewed by the borough council’s overview and scrutiny committee.

Cllrs Kevin Ball, Clare Kemp and Barry Ratcliffe ‘called in’ the decision to be reviewed siting that there wasn’t sufficient consultation prior to making the decision to close the outreach and the lack of engagement with stakeholders.

They asked the overview and scrutiny committee to recommend referring the decision to full council to consider a borough-wide review of how the authority enables access to services and to delay the closure of the northern outreach until it has been properly debated.

• For more, pick up a copy of this week’s Okehampton Times.