A NEW £10 million one-and-a-half-mile section of the B3193 Kingsteignton-Chudleigh road was opened on Monday.

It will now allow Sibelco to access important clay reserves under the old road which the company says will safeguard the jobs of the firm's 100 local employees for decades.

Newton Abbot MP Anne Marie Morris cut a ribbon to open the new road, named Clay Pit Way – chosen from hundreds of suggestions from schoolchildren in a competition.

The winners – ten-year-old Will Flood and four-year-old Lilli Shone of Kingsteignton's St Michael's C of E Primary, both came up with the same name. It won them the privilege of making a bit of Devon history as well as £1,250 vouchers for their school which it can spend with Kingsteignton firm ABC Playgrounds.

Sibelco's Gary Stringer has overseen the project which was several years in the planning and 17 months in construction.

'This has been our biggest single investment in the south Devon clay business and one of the most significant we have made anywhere in the country.

'Anne Marie Morris has been very proactive in ensuring the project received the attention it needed and I'd like in particular to thank Cllr Mike Walters without whose tireless efforts we could still be on the drawing board.'