A SOUTH Devon village is at loggerheads with developers over a £1.5million legacy left to a tiny museum by a reclusive spinster.

Molly Coombe, 77 and from Bishopsteignton, died in 2007 and bequeathed virtually her entire estate, a total of £1,572,376, to the village museum.

Plans for a new museum have only just been lodged but they include three new properties to help fund the project.

Cockhaven Manor pub manager Jordan West said: "I'm a bit unsure about the need to build houses to go with it. There are already two or three developments going on in Bishopsteignton in this area."

Another villager, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed: "There would be enough money without the houses if the plans were not so ambitious."

But David Lovell from developer Heritage Homes, which is acting as agent for the executors, said the new museum would be 'a fantastic asset' for the village.

The museum, currently housed in two rooms above the community centre, is open only on Sunday afternoons and bank holidays during the summer.

Legal difficulties concerning the specific nature of the will meant plans for a new museum were only submitted last week.

Miss Coombe had requested the museum's contents be moved into her four-bedroom home in the village, but this was not possible.

The original house on Newton Road has been sold, but the plans include building a new museum with parking spaces for six vehicles and a learning centre on land at the back of Miss Coombe's old home on Flow Lane.

Three new properties will be built in the back garden to help fund the ambitious plans.

Pub boss Mr West added: "Personally I think the museum and learning centre is a great idea because Bishopsteignton has quite a history going back to the Doomsday Book.

"However, I wonder how it's going to cost more than £1.5million for the museum and learning centre. Who is going to pay for it to run and what's the demand for it?"

Founded in 1982, the museum is staffed by volunteers and receives between 300 and 400 visitors a year.

Its exhibits include memorabilia from the First World War, Scouts and Girl Guides groups, lithographs of Brunel's Atmospheric Railway, a stone-age flint, railway memorabilia, the propeller of a Sopwith Camel aircraft, a small collection of bicycle lamps and a 15ft-long python skin.

Until now it has survived on donations from visitors and the occasional small grant.

At a pre-application submission meeting in July last year, councillors and residents expressed their concerns about the scale of the plans given the size of the museum collection, its minimal opening times and the low number of annual visitors.

Bequest

Concerns also included access to the museum and increased traffic on nearby Flow Lane and Cockhaven Road.

Chairman of the museum John Evans said: "There has to be a new museum because that was the bequest."

He said the museum building had to be closed recently because of structural problems and a new floor and ceiling put in.

Miss Coombe lived in Bishopsteignton her entire life. Her father, Phillip, was a wealthy local builder who had served on the Western Front during the First World War.

She gave his war diaries and other souvenirs of the trenches to the museum's collection.

Among the items she donated was a cat o' nine tails which he had found on the body of a dead German officer.

Executors insist the proposal fulfils a significant number of requirements of the will amounting to about 70 per cent.

Mr Lovell from developers Heritage Homes, said: "The executors have consulted just about everybody in the village to arrive at a solution that fulfils the wishes of the will but also provides a valuable asset and amenity to the community.

"Without the three houses there would not be enough money for the project. There is plenty of room for the homes and the museum without squeezing everything in."

Mr Lovell confirmed the use of Miss Coombes' home had not been viable because of County Highways concerns over access on to the main road and the unsuitability of the property.