HOW long does a town council have to wait for a reply from the county council?

With no reply to a letter written in July, there was some irritation at this month's - September - meeting of Crediton Town Council's general purposes committee that Devon County Council had not replied to that letter or a later letter about a proposed link road for the town.

The council wrote to the county chief executive and Leader of the council asking for the valley route to be included in this month's county council exhibition of possible routes. A second letter, reiterated the request.

Cllr Nick Way, a county and district councillor as well as a town councillor, had not spoken about the road consultation to either of the county council members, but said he had spoken to the county design officers.

He had persuaded the county council to send a questionnaire to householders in the area and had been told these would go out about a week before the exhibition on the routes.

This would be on September 25 and 26 at the Old Town Hall, from 7-8pm on Friday, September 25 and 10am-4pm on the 26th. Councillors would be among those invited to a preliminary meeting on the 24th.

He had been told that the submission from county for the consultation would be published in the middle of this week (September 16/17)..

When Cllr Letch pointed out that Cllr Way had said "exhibition" six times and "consultation" once, Cllr Way said the county council had now agreed to make the matter a full consultation, of which the questionnaire would be a part.

He did not believe the county council was going to include the valley route, but said there would be "a lot of information" on that route at the exhibition.

"A good consultation" was a caustic comment from one member. Cllr Liz Brookes-Hocking said that a year ago the town council had been asked to choose between the valley and hillside routes. "We have realised how biased the language was. It said, basically, the valley route was too expensive," she said.

Another councillor added that the town council had been told then that if it opted for the valley route, it would not be built.

For full story see issue 832.