WBB Minerals has said historic mining deep under the outskirts of Newton Abbot will dictate where it could build a proposed multi-million pound rugby complex. The company, which is promoting massive development on worked-out clay land it owns in the area, first mooted specific ideas about a new home for Newton Abbot Rugby Club in July 2005. It said it could provide a new club house and up to six pitches on land lying to the west of Old Exeter Road. Bob Williams, chief executive of Arnold White Estates, WBBM's development partner, claimed the scheme would benefit the wider community and said: 'I promise you, no other developer would put their head above the parapet and offer to build all this as it doesn't make financial sense. 'If you put everything into the pot we lose money. We're looking at £10 million plus.' Now WBBM has submitted the first planning application for the development, one which seeks to assure planners that the land is neither contaminated nor at risk of collapse. In a detailed technical report the company states that as the area above ground has been used for agriculture it is essentially clean. However, it recognises that historic underground activity has taken place. It has revealed adit mining on the eastern edge of the site, an entrance to which is 400 metres away. The adit dips towards the north-west on a slope of approximately one-in-three. At the southern boundary, the mine workings are estimated to be between 83 and 103 metres below ground. The reports suggest that although most of the voids will still be supported with timber and back-filled, some may not. 'The condition of the additional adits, however, is more difficult to assess,' the report states. 'The abandonment plan does not indicate any filling to have taken place and it is less likely that they will have been double posted.' Although it goes on to say a collapse would be 'unlikely' it concludes: 'However it would be prudent to locate any sensitive structures in areas of the site not directly underlain by mining.' Last year the firm won approval for a large development of new homes at nearby Jetty Marsh after a planning inquiry agreed that the cost of restoring old workings and providing flood defences meant Teignbridge Council's 50 per cent affordable homes target was not appropriate for the site.