What this town needs : Tesco or ASDA @ Exeter Road Industrial Estate/Opportunity Okehampton, KFC, MacDonalds, Burger King, Primark, these kinds of businesses will employ loads of staff, I don't mean to be negative but 1.8million on aload of empty units and a train station. Okehampton already has empty units. As for local businesses suffering see how many Tesco delivery vans drive through Okehampton, all searved by staff not from Okehampton. I've seen plenty of people from Oke in Exeter eating MacDonalds and KFC. As for clothes shopping Okehampton is very limited - I always go to the big supermarkets or large cheap clothes store again not in Okehampton. Come on local council wakey wakey !

Okehampton just isn't big enough to attract those kinds of business. Yes we have enough unemployed to fill the jobs if they were created but the size of the town means the retailers won't get the footfall they need. Couple that to the fact that there are no locations big enough for these chains to move in to and it looks like a non-starter.

The only option I can see is to create a retail village on the edge of town. Build purpose built units large enough and fill them with the big highstreet names. It will create the jobs and attract visitors to it. But it might kill off our existing town centre in the process.

And do we really need another super market?

I happen to agree with all of the above but the fact remains if you want to shop or want fast food 20 miles is the average you have to travel and as for the latvians,we used to live in exeter and there are literaly hundreds of latvians/polish and its not that the people of devon don't want to work it is that the latvians/polish and so on will share a house with 10-15 people witch in turn means they can afford to live on the low wage as there bills are all shared.
Imagen if your rent and bills was divided between 10 people it all of a sudden wouldnt be to expensive,But as many of us are families that would not be possible i think the biggest issue is the low wage .
If i was to live in london and went to tesco i would pay the same for bread as i would in devon but my average wage in london would be £8.50 but in devon would be £5.50 so i guess the point im making if salleries were more attractive maybee more people would be better off at work and not at home claiming benifets.

I can see for and against with all the above arguments, we do need a better variety of shop in Okehampton as for a d.i.y. B & Q are taking over the old focus in Launceston from next month but I'm sure if you went to the DIY outlets on north road you would find plenty of kitchen tiles, we could benefit from some eating outlets that don't stop serving at 9pm, and some clothes shops, shoes are practically impossible to purchase we need shops that are middle range at present we have peacocks (cheap) or the more expensive shops and unfortunetly because of low wages and unemployment many cannot afford them, I know I struggle to get presents for my grandchildren in town. Yes Okehampton needs more variety which in turn would bring more employment but having lived in Okehampton all my life (50 years) I experience tells me nothing will change!!!!!