FOR most of last Saturday morning, Mid Devon District Council planning staff were kept busy answering questions about land use in the area for the next 20 years - where homes and employment should be.

This was at the options consultation into the district council's Local Plan Review. There had already been other such days in the district with one more to be held at Lapford this week.

Mr Jonathan Guscott, head of planning at the district council, said they had also been invited to explain the plan at a number of parish council meetings.

It was obvious from the number of people who went that morning to the exhibition in the Council Chamber at Crediton and the length of time they spent asking questions and looking that there was a great interest.

Anyone who missed this can read the whole document online at http://www.middevon.gov.uk/localplanreview">www.middevon.gov.uk/localplanreview, or buy a copy at the district council offices.

Responses need to be with the district council by March 24.

Mr Guscott commented that development sites in this document were the result of the district council having made an appeal.

Now was the time if landowners wished to put other land forward. Mr Guscott added that there would be another round of consultation in September, having gone through comments from this round.

"We have sites which would meet the criteria for development and now we are asking the public about these options. We still have four times as much put forward as is required.

"This document means that everyone knows what is happening over the next 20 years," he added.

Mr Guscott had explained that one of the housing problems was that more people were living on their own. Whereas 40 years ago one home in 10 was that of a single person, today it was one in four.

This, plus other factors, had to be taken into account which was why more homes were needed.

The consultation document is thick, more than one centimetre, (three quarters of an inch) thick including pages of maps of the towns and villages where land has been put forward.

Among the villages are Bow (potentially 130 homes), Cheriton Bishop (480), Chawleigh (56), Colebrooke (15), Cheriton Fitzpaine (142), Copplestone (216), Morchard Bishop (53), Newton St Cyres (144), Sandford (35), Thorverton (50)and Yeoford (17).

A few are already allocated - six at Bow west of Godfrey Gardens, 12 at Morchard on land west of Greenaway and Sandford with 35 homes on Fanny's Lane of which 19 already have planning permission.

Then there is the employment land in villages. At Bow two sites - south of Iter Cross and west of Junction Road - add up to one hectare already allocated in the plan.

So the plan could affect everyone in some way and is worth spending the time checking through.

Sue Read