Millwood Homes, the developer behind an £80m Dartmouth new homes project, is still waiting to find out whether it will be able to controversially redraw the all-important development boundary.

Millwood claims its needs to extend the development land on the western edge of Dartmouth by an extra 25 acres to ensure that massive project involving 400 homes, employment units, sports facilities and a community hub, is viable.

Meanwhile, councillors from the parish of Stoke Fleming – which is where most of the development will end up taking place – are questioning whether Millwood should be looking at building so many homes in the first place.

Parish council chairman Jenny Farmer said: 'We are not opposed to development as a whole. We know people need houses.

'We are suggesting they revisit the number of houses that they are able to build.

'We still don't believe that we need that amount of housing and certainly not that amount of employment land.

'We are opposed to the boundary extension. We are objecting to the way they wish to develop the site if they are given permission to extend the boundary.'

Millwood, which has been through almost a year of public consultation over a masterplan to develop a site from the Dartmouth Academy boundary to Venn Lane, now wants to change the development plan document goalposts.

It claims it needs to extend the southern boundary of the development site by 25 acres to make up for one parcel of land a local farmer is refusing to sell and a steep section which would be too expensive to develop viably.

The company has already had talks with South Hams Council officers and councillors to spell out exactly why it needs the boundary extended.

Millwood Homes' Mike Smith said: 'We received some feedback from that meeting but nothing formal. We are hoping to get a formal response in due course.'

And a South Hams Council spokesman confirmed: 'Officers and members have not formally given any response to Millwood Homes about their proposals to amend the boundary. The matter is still under consideration.'

Meanwhile, Millwood Homes is staging its next round of public consultations at the Baptist Church in Carey Road, Dartmouth, on Tuesday, September 18, between 2pm and 8pm.

Mr Smith said the exhibition was entitled 'delivery' and would look at the latest masterplan proposals.

He said that if Millwood was forced to stick to the original development boundary it could have to reduce the community hub proposals o reduce the number of homes.

Fewer homes would mean less money available for the employment land and sports facilities and he warned that the risk was it would make the whole development 'pretty undeliverable'.