Dartmouth only has itself to blame for the latest affordable housing blow, which has seen the £80 million West Dart home project left looking like a 'dogs breakfast'.

Earlier this year protestors in Dartmouth and Stoke Fleming launched a major campaign to stop developers from building the 400 West Dart homes outside the designated development boundary.

Now Millwood Homes claims it has been forced to slash the number of houses which can be built on the site by almost half.

And that is going to inevitably slash the number of affordable homes which will eventually be built there.

The Townstal Com-munity Partnership has just launched a petition calling for affordable homes built as part of the development to go to people in the local area where there are almost 600 on the housing waiting list.

County councillor Jonathan Hawkins told town councillors last week that the more homes that are built at West Dart the more affordable homes there will be.

But he pointed out that when South Hams councillors refused to allow the West Dart development to expand outside the development boundary they were listening to public opinion.

'Dartmouth said no. Stoke Fleming said no. South Hams Council ensured that the development stays within the development boun-dary after listening to the public opinion.'

He warned that Dartmouth, with a population of just 5,500, has to grow to remain a sustainable town.

Bur he added: 'If Dartmouth says no, it's Dartmouth's choice.'

On Tuesday the Ashburton-based Mill-wood Homes developers staged an exhibition outlining the details of the planning application which will be submitted to planners in the New Year.

Instead of 405 new homes, that planning application will be for just 220 – because large sections of the original site cannot be developed and the district council has said no to extending the development boundary.

Once the planning application is approved Millwood aims to sell the site to the Derbyshire based family run Bloor Homes development company who will actually build the houses.

No one has yet outlined just how many affordable homes would be delivered by the scheme – neither the 405 home project not the 220 homes scheme.

Townstal Comm-unity Partnership made it clear that it wants to see affordable homes for local people as it declared: 'With 595 local people on the housing list, this is a real issue that affects us all.

'We need to build a viable community and economy for Dartmo-uth, not encourage people to live and work elsewhere and create more opportunity for second homes.

'Please consider the local community needs first.'

Milwood spent al-most two years consulting with Dartmouth to produce a masterplan for the development project – only to see it rejected by South Hams Council.

The main problem over the designated site was that a local landowner refused to sell his farm and South Hams Council, made it clear that building on the Townstal playing fields was not an option.

Dartmouth Town Council's finance committee chairman Francis Hawke told councillors that he was concerned that now that only half the expected homes were likely to be built.

'He warned that, when it came to the crunch, the town was likely to get just a dozen or so homes for social housing.

'This really has been an absolute waste of time for the indigenous population that we are trying to house,' he said.