A TAKEOVER bid might be launched for Dartmouth's prize-winning town centre gardens. Dartmouth Town Council is looking to take control of Royal Avenue Gardens and the public toilets – if the numbers stack up. Councillors have been planning to get their hands on gardens, which are owned and managed by South Hams Council, for more than a year. They have only just been given the figures detailing just how much the district council spends on them and their public toilets – and how much it would cost the town if it took on the job. This week former town council finance boss Francis Hawke was involved in a number-crunching exercise before reporting back to the councillors on whether they should bother pressing ahead with the takeover plan. He said the figures were confidential, although South Hams Council said last year when it was looking at closing down public toilets for the winter that the embankment loos alone cost £52,000 a year to run. 'I shall be bringing a full report to the town council in September,' said Cllr Hawke. 'We have got to sit down and look at it and see if we can make it a viable proposition. This is something new to us and we really have to look at all the costings and see if we can make a win-win deal with the district council.' The popular Royal Avenue Gardens are used as a centrepiece to all the major events in Dartmouth – the royal regatta and the food and music festivals.

For the full story see this week's Dartmouth Chronicle