Town's £34m bypass will unlock new homes

A town in Devon will get £34m for a bypass that will enable thousands of new homes to be built.

Mid Devon District Council has announced it has been successful in its bid for cash from the government to build a new relief road.

Work on the development of a 5,000-home town on the edge of Cullompton - the Culm Garden Village - will not start until the relief road has been agreed

The council said the funding would bring a long-awaited change to the area.

Steve Keable, Mid Devon District Council cabinet member for planning and economic regeneration, said: "It will make a huge difference to Cullompton. People here have been waiting for many years for this to happen.

"Their hopes have been raised and dashed, raised and dashed. It's so important to have a good living centre in our market towns."

The council has always said the first stages of the 5,000-home Culm Garden Village - first proposed in 2017 - would not be built until the relief road was confirmed.

Backers have previously claimed a relief road would make the town more attractive to shoppers and increase air quality.

People living in Cullompton agree it could be good for the economy and environment.

Resident Chris Chamberlain told the BBC: "We need to reduce the traffic along the High Street and the shops might get more footfall."

Work has already begun on moving Cullompton's cricket club to make way for the bypass. A replacement cricket pitch will be part of new sports facilities at Culm Garden Village.

A new railway station is also a possibility for the town, which lost its station to the Beeching cuts in 1964, which saw more than 2,000 stations close.

In July, the Labour government said it was scrapping the national Restore Your Railway plans but said it would "attempt to consider the Wellington and Cullompton stations' project".

The council said a move to improve services at junction 28 of the M5 was making good progress and a further business case for investment in the J28 junction is currently with government for consideration.

The Liberal Democrat MP for Honiton and Sidmouth, Richard Foord, said he was hopeful the railway station project was far enough developed that the government would want to see it through to completion.

He said Cullompton had seen "lots of new housing developments and forecasts for enormous amounts of house-building", which required new transport infrastructure.

Follow BBC Devon on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].