the future of Newton Abbot Livestock Market was suddenly thrown into the melting pot by Teignbridge Council in a deliberate attempt to fudge the town's Wolborough Street redevelopment, it has been claimed.

The findings of consultants employed by the council suggested that the livestock market was an ideal venue for more retail space, but the town's chamber of trade now maintains it made everyone take their eye off the ball.

Jeremy Newcombe, the chamber's planning and transportation committee chairman, said the view of the chamber executive was that it was inappropriate to bring out the issue of the market when the Wolborough Street redevelopment had hardly been debated.

Mr Newcombe said: 'The effect was obvious. Wolborough Street was knocked off the front pages of the papers.

'If that happened at government level one might say it was quite clever spin. Was it a deliberate act on the district authority's part or did it not think about these two issues coming into conflict?

'The CoT was very annoyed that the issue of Wolborough Street has not been given a proper airing.'

Mr Newcombe described a consultation for two days at the tail end of one week in November as 'paying lip service to public consultation'.

He pointed out that that was not organised by the council but by the developers.

'We feel so strongly about it that the chamber is organising an open general meeting, to be held at 6.30pm on Monday, January 19, at the Queens Hotel, to which non-members are invited, to discuss the Asda/ASM proposals,' said Mr Newcombe.

He added that the latest plans showed the store had now doubled in size, with fewer car parking spaces.

'It is the same size as Tesco, which has 700 car parking spaces, and before Christmas they were all taken. Are we expecting Asda to trade less than Tesco?

'The job of our local authority and councillors is to look beyond the skin at the real essence of the application.

'We supported the original plan, but the latest application is far too big and, if it proceeds, it will damage the town,' he warned.

Mr Newcombe has previously pointed out that in the development for the Asda store approved last year there was car parking for 793 cars with a gross floor area of 59,420 sq ft, while the proposed development now had car parking for 747 cars and 83,439 sq ft gross floor area.

Teignbridge Council Development Control Committee will be discussing the Asda/ASM Properties plan in February.