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of young people and the lack of employment chances.'

With a proposed Government 'localism plan' in the pipeline to empower people to manage more of the services in their community Mr Stride said: 'If I have any criticism of the council (West Devon) it is that it is ready, too quickly, to put big clumps of development on both towns — Okehampton and Tavistock.'

Mr Stride felt the council should step back

and wait for Government action on the localism plan.

But Marion Playle said that to stop now would open the core strategy up to the danger of 'planning by appeal'.

Steve Blood for the Devon Heartlands, added that a petition by the then MP Geoffrey Cox in 2007 attracted 1,600 signatures hostile to the scale of development, and another in 2008 attracted 2,600 signatures.

He said: 'I would say that this reflects that the council did not take the option to listen to the people of Okehampton and stand back from the path it had chosen to pursue.'

Marion Playle replied that the petitions were about concerns over whether the current infrastruture would be 'overwhelmed' but not objecting to development.

There were concerns about how far the eastern development was away from the town centre.

Mr Crysell queried that when it came to connectivity with the town that planned walkways and cycling paths would present a steep incline to users because of the typography.

Mr Gill argued that the 2.5k was not easy for access, particularly for the high number of elderly people.

The planning inspector's ruling is expected in the new year.