DARTMOUTH is in danger of turning into a tourist theme park, some residents fear.

Concerns over how changes can take place sensitively within the town have been raised by Tony Fyson, chairman of the preservation group Dartmouth and Kingswear Society.

He was speaking at Thursday’s meeting of the Dartmouth Business Improvement District attended by about 50 people in the Clifton Room of the Guildhall.

The information evening – the first in a promised series to be held every quarter – saw the BID outline its latest projects to levy payers.

They include new signage proposals, which businesses are being urged to give their views on, and a ‘see how it goes’ £20,000-plus digital marketing campaign for the town.

BID chairman Peter Conisbee said Dartmouth was not a tourism BID but interested in promoting the town on a 12-month basis.

‘But whether we like it or not the Dartmouth economy is driven by tourism,’ he said. And he maintained 90 per cent of the money that came into Dartmouth was tourist led.

He said: ‘And if you accept that principle, then how do we expand that and put Dartmouth on the map and make it better known as a wonderful place to live and visit?’

But Mr Fyson, who is also a town councillor, said those figures needed to be backed up by evidence.

And he urged people to respond to the neighbourhood plan which was being compiled as a blueprint for the town’s future development.

‘You can’t work on hunches and assumptions,’ he said.

For more on this story, see this week’s Dartmouth Chronicle