Cllr David Howe, of Waltham Road, writes:

With regard to the three letters last week giving their points of view on the filling station at Asda.

In short, a summary of them is ‘not logical’, ‘not listening’ and a cynical yet humorous summary from Geraldine.

As chairman of the town council planning committee, I must first point out to David and Suzanne that regards your starting reference to the town council never listening, you need to be aware that as regards planning matters we are only a consultee and can only make recommendations to the principal planning authority, which is Teignbridge Council, on general planning applications.

Devon County Council are the planning authority regards highways issues and certain other environmental issues which they control.

So it was not the town council that passed this application and, in fact, the majority of the planning committee did make a ‘recommendation of refusal’ to Teignbridge.

To touch on the general principals of ‘planning applications’, they are there to allow building/alterations within the remits of what is allowed and what may not.

Reference to the current Local Plan gives a steer to the direction of local growth, but as far as I am aware there is nothing in that plan which stipulates they cannot apply for a petrol station.

In fact, if it was refused they would probably appeal to the Planning Inspectorate which may well have overruled the decision, which would have led to Teignbridge having to pay for their costs of appeal, which could have been highly significant.

So there it is, permission granted.

I sympathise with residents living ultra close and I do personally feel that omitting the car wash facility would be at least a gesture to the criticism and save a dozen or so parking spaces.