PEOPLE in Okehampton are to be asked their opinion on whether boundaries of the town should be enlarged to take in parts of the current Hamlets parish.

West Devon Borough Council agreed at their meeting on Tuesday to go ahead with the ‘community governance review’ which Okehampton Town Council had petitioned them to carry out last September.

The town council would like the borough council to consider taking in the newly built up areas of the town on its eastern side which are currently part of the Hamlets Parish Council area.

The council believes this will allow them greater clout in applying for grants and also that it makes sense because the town has enlarged so much in recent years. Four hundred and thirty five members of the public backed the town council’s petition urging a rethink back in September last year. The consultation starts today (Thursday) and will run until June.

As well as consulting electors – those with a vote – other interested parties will be asked for their opinion, which in the case of Okehampton, includes Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council, the neighbouring authority. Devon County Council will also be asked for an opinion.The Hamlets authority has made it clear that it does not agree with the proposal, which would see the new estates built on farmland to the east of the town brought into the town itself.

Councillors Tony Leech (Okehampton North ward) and Julie Yelland, who represents Okehampton South on the borough council, both declared an interest, as members of Okehampton Town Council, at the borough council meeting on Tuesday. The rest of the councillors voted for the community governance review to go ahead.

At the same meeting, it was agreed to carry out a ‘community governance review’ of Sydenham Damerel Parish Council, in the Milton Ford ward of West Devon Borough Council. This is in response to a separate petition received at the same borough council meeting back in September. It was made by John Heard, a former parish council chairman, who called for the village’s parish council to be abolished and decisions to be made at a public meeting instead. Mr Hearn’s petition, backed by signatures from 151 electors of the parish, called for the abolition of the council of which he was once part, sayings its budget went on administration since a clerk was appointed and many village activities were organised independently of the parish council.