DARTMOOR National Park Authority is calling on anyone with an interest in the area’s future to get involved as it starts drawing up a new local plan.

The local plan will guide future development in the National Park, with DNPA saying it will be ’the starting point when we make a decision on the planning applications of local residents, local businesses, developers and others’.

The current plan was adopted in April 2008, and supposed to cover the period up to 2026. But DNPA has chosen to start the process of reviewing the plan early, saying ’a lot has changed’ since the last version was drawn up.

In autumn 2016 the authority began consultation over a document setting out various topics to be covered in the new plan, and held a series of events including one in South Brent in November.

DNPA now says more than 200 people have commented, but in a bid to hear more of what people think it has extended the deadline for comments to Friday, January 13 2017.

The authority says affordable housing, affordable employment space, community infrastructure and appropriate alternative uses for historic agricultural buildings were the subjects people were most interested in. It also thanked everyone who took the time to comment or attended one of the consultation events.

The Issues for the new Local Plan consultation document is divided into sections under headings like Environment, Housing and Economy, Business and Leisure. People can respond to each section individually via an online form, or download and complete a paper or offline version.

Please visit www.dartmoor.gov.uk/localplan to find out more and make comments. There are also dedicated Facebook and Twitter accounts to keep up to date with progress, search for Dartmoor Local Plan.