DEVON county and South Hams district councillor Jonathan Hawkins says town councils should have devolved powers over their own facilities.

For the first time publicly, Cllr Hawkins told Dartmouth Town Council on Monday night, that ‘you know what’s best for Dartmouth’ and that it would be ‘far better, in the not too distant future, for the towns to have ownership’.

‘You should have the car parks, you should have the gardens and the ferry’, said Cllr Hawkins. ‘You should have the income from the area you serve and be able to put that money back into the facilities.’

He said there were ‘four excellent town councils in the South Hams’ and for the towns to have control would be better than ‘middle district’ making decisions, because the local councils know what is best for their areas.

His comments came after a question and answer session with the chairman of South Hams Council, Cllr Ian Bramble, who said it was likely that ‘by 2020, all direct funding from central government will have ceased’.

The Government has recently been talking about allowing local authorities to keep 100 per cent of business rates and council tax, of which currently, they give 50 per cent to Whitehall, and the remaining 50 per cent is shared between the district council, the county council and the town, along with taxes and levies.

Town councillor Tessa de Galleani said: ‘We want our borough status back; we want to be able to cut our own verges; we want our assets back. We can do it better and cheaper and, at the moment, we are paying for the district’s mismanagement.’