“Oona Wagstaff states that life in Denbury is "everything village life should be". In my previous experiences of living in villages, village life tends to involve much gossiping, back biting, cliques and fall-outs. This is much more prevalent nowdays than 'when I was a lad' in the 60's - back then they were real communities with everyone looking out for, and supporting each other.

Perhaps Mr Perrin should review his planning application and re-submit his application - this time for social housing that he could then lease to the local Housing Association (and more likely to get the support of the local authority). Teignbridge could then use this for a dumping ground for their less desireable tenants, who have traditionally been 'deported' to places like Chudleigh, Buckfastleigh etc.

Would this be a more acceptable solution for the residents than 11 'nice' houses with 'nice' professional families in?”

“There were 36 letters of objection lodged on the portal for this planning application - not 9 as is stated here.”

“This is an unhappy situation. One which we did not invite into our lives. As a household, we are looking forward to meeting with Mr Perrin to try to discuss and move forward with a positive and even handed solution to these uninvited problems. I feel that Mr. Perrin will need to accept that as a property speculator intruding upon peoples lives in the way in which he has, he was bound to provoke some strong emotion. There were infact 36 objections to his proposal (not nine as was reported).
Mr Perrin failed to accurately judge the mood at the the time and keep up to date with how people were feeling...moods do change as people gain greater understanding of the issues.
Mr.Perrin also failed to consider that others in Denbury who live off the estate but who also use the roads and amenities may also have objections to his proposal. These views are equally valid and were of course taken into consideration when planning was refused. Denbury is a wonderful village;everything village life should be. Lets do our best to resolve these issues and keep it that way.”

“'Concerned Villager' raises some valid points, and helpfully describes some of the background to this situation. However, at this stage it would be a grave mistake to slide into recriminations and aportioning blame. I believe the challenge now is to look forwards and attempt to resolve the situation we find ourselves in. The post mortem can wait for another day.

Mr Perrin has said he wants to meet the residents to explain why he's acting in the way he is at the moment. I'm sure there are also plenty of residents who want to meet Mr Perrin and explain how they feel about the whole situation.

A meeting has been arranged - at 7:30pm on Thursday 12/11/09 in Denbury Village Hall. I would strongly urge anybody who has an opinion on this matter - whatever that opinion might be - to come to the meeting and make their voice heard.”

“Mr Perrin is a property developer and has bought some land for profit. Local people objected to a planning application, as is their right, yet he considers himself a "victim"?
His claims of an "orchestrated campaign" are merely a Residents Association who existed before he bought the land, and who have kept the Residents informed of his plans. Each person then chooses to object to a planning application, or not, this cannot be "orchestrated", it is democracy in action.
His claim of a "minority of disgruntled residents" can only be based on a survey done by the Residents Association following Mr Perrin talking at a Residents Meeting, at which he said if we did not object to his appliction he already had an agreement in place with the council to upgrade the estates roads so they would be adopted by Teignbridge Council. He stated this would be done before development was completed. This meant our liability as residents for the roads would be gone, so only 5 houses said they would disagree with development as we would all gain from it.

It then became clear Mr Perrin had misinformed us, there was no agreement with the council, indeed he had actually been told it was a virtual impossibility that the roads would ever be adopted in the future. If they would not be adopted, the was no upside for Reidents, perception of Mr Perrin had changed, and his application then had over 30 objections and was denied by both Teignbridge & Devon Councils.
What is happening now, as happened with the old Denbury Diesels site in this lovely village, is that the area wil become a wasteland and eventually he hopes people will come to think anything will be an improvement, so planning will be granted. He is now creating an eyesore, causing parking problems for villagers & denying the local children their play space which has been used for over 30 years. This is clearly an outrageous bullying tactic, but is sadly legal.

There is one point that should be made though - when the MOD sold the land Residents had first chance to buy it - at a high sum admittedly, but they had a further chance to purchase the land at auction. The land was bought at auction (not by Mr Perrin) for approx £31,000, less than £1000 per house on the estate. At the time, the then Chair of the Residents Association had a plan for us residents to buy the land to secure our estates future, but this plan failed due to lack of interest from residents - many of whom said what is now actually happening could never happen. If only we had listened to that plan, we would not be in this awful predicament now.”

“I don't know the ins and outs of this, but the fact is if the residents don't own the land and it is not public open space ie owned and maintained at the public expence, then it is within rights of owner of the land to enclose it or restrict access. If the residents wish to use the land for their recreation and amenity they could offer to buy it at its market value.”

“There were 36 letters of objection to be seen on the planning portal for this objection. Also, I have seen no evidence of the garages being defaced.”