AFFORDABLE homes and jobs are key priorities that should be established before Dartmouth's West Dart development gets under way, it was decided last week. Dartmouth Town Council has objected to Millwood Homes outline proposal, which has been more than two years on the drawing board. It includes 240 new homes on land next to Townstal Road – of which 14 per cent would be affordable. But town councillors say the number of affordable homes is 'unacceptably low' and also want to safeguard the provision of future jobs and industry for the town. At a special meeting last week at the Guildhall, the council's planning committee unanimously called for a higher number of affordable homes as part of the development on a site between Townstal and Venn Lane. Councillors are also seeking guarantees that employment land is provided and controlled, as was proposed by Cllr Dave Cawley. 'We need more employment in Dartmouth,' he said. 'The proposed area looks quite good but what guarantee have we got that the employment land will be available and built on at the same time or before the houses?' South Hams Council's affordable housing officer Liam Reading told the meeting that the council had appointed its own viability consultants to look at the plan. 'We haven't completed that exercise yet, but the initial indication is the development can sustain a substantially higher level of affordable housing than that being proposed by Millwoods,' he said. 'But they look unlikely to increase their offer.' He said the district council wanted to get the highest affordable housing percentage possible for the site, with a target of 55 per cent, subject to viability. 'We are looking at that in a very robust way,' he said. Cllr Francis Hawke said many people were having to live in below-par flats rented from private landlords in Dartmouth and what was needed was 'good social housing'. 'We are now three years down the line from when we first met with Millwood and it seems to me that so far we have achieved nothing,' he said. He said there were over 600 people on the waiting list for social housing for Dartmouth and – although the district council was doing its best – the problem was 'what was affordable' for the people of Dartmouth. 'It is difficult to buy a house,' he said. 'You have to be looking at something like £120,000.' If planning permission was granted on the present proposal, more than 200 of the properties would become either second homes or homes for retired people, he warned. 'And you will end up with no young people in the town,' he said. 'We need at least 50 per cent of those properties to be social housing, either to purchase or rent. We have to think about job opportunities.' Cllr Hawke said back in the late 1930s, Dartmouth Borough Council had bought the whole area of Townstal for future housing. 'They were told they were mad at the time but look what they achieved,' he said, 'the biggest social housing estate in the South Hams, with 637 properties built primarily after the Second World War. We provided houses for heroes and did a good job up there. 'Please don't be bought out for a small sum of social housing.' Cllr Steve Smith questioned why Millwood Homes had never involved a housing association to assist with the development. But Mr Reading said it was not something the council could impose. 'We recommended to Millwood very early on in the master planning process that they engage with a local housing association over the design, layout and integration of scheme and they were reluctant to do that,' he said. But he made clear that any early involvement with a housing association would not necessarily help the financial viability of the scheme. He said when it came to looking at local affordability – shared ownership and discounted sales – both local house prices and local incomes would be taken into consideration. In particularly expensive places, such as Dartmouth and Salcombe, discounted figures were adapted to help people get on the housing ladder, he said. Cllr Richard Cooke said it had taken several years to get to this point and if the plan was turned down 'what were the realistic prospects' of another developer taking on the scheme and doing something different? 'They are all in it for the money and are going to weigh things up in a similar way,' he said. 'Will it take us another 10 years down the line with nothing achieved?' During the hour-long debate, committee chairman Cllr David Gent invited comments from members of the public. Former mayor Richard Rendle urged councillors to look at the overall profile of the town and what they were creating and what was sustainable. South Hams Council's planning officer Dave Kenyon said it was one of the district council's core priorities to get as much affordable housing as possible, providing it was viable. Another of the council's aims was to safeguard and maintain employment land, as well as getting more, he added. The mixed use application includes up to 2.7 hectares of employment land; a local centre; open space and play areas; landscaping; cycle path and footpath links; and associated infrastructure, served off a new primary and secondary access at Town­stal Road. The plan is not likely to be decided by South Hams development management committee before November.