Your Voice: Where should new council HQ go?

Elections will take place in 2027 for a new Devon Council being launched as part of the biggest transformation of local government for more than 50 years.

With this massive reorganisation going on, we asked you to get in touch via BBC Your Voice with any questions about the shake-up.

With Exeter, Plymouth and Torbay all expanding and forming separate new councils, one of the burning questions was where will the headquarters for the council representing the rest of Devon be located?

Here, we look at some of the possible locations for Devon Council's headquarters.

At nearly 2,600 sq miles (6,700 sq km), Devon is the fourth biggest county in England and the only one to boast two entirely separate coastlines.

While Exeter has been the base for Devon County Council for more than 100 years, the city will be forming its own unitary council from April 2028 - expanding to take in areas such as Crediton and Exmouth.

The area covered by the new Devon Council spreads from Holsworthy in the west to Axminster in the east and from Dartmouth in the south to Lynton in the north.

But there is no obvious location to serve as a headquarters where councillors from the four corners of the county will come together to hold full council meetings.

Barnstaple is the biggest town in the Devon Council area and has the council offices for the existing North Devon Council - which will be abolished as part of the reorganisation.

Out on the High Street in Barnstaple, a woman who did not give her name said: "I think the headquarters should be in Barnstaple, it's quite central and the hospital's here."

But Barnstaple is more than a two-hour drive from parts of the South Hams that will also be included in the new Devon Council.

Geographically, the obvious contender as a central point is Okehampton, nestled in the foothills of Dartmoor.

The town is near the A30 that runs right through Devon from east to west and has new railway stations with one in the town and another, the Okehampton Interchange, just outside.

But there will not be any vacant council offices in Okehampton as it is part of West Devon District Council, which operates out of Tavistock.

Out in the shopping area, Adelaide Lort-Phillips said: "I think Okey's a lovely place and yes, it's in the middle of Devon but it's not as well connected as places like Exeter and Plymouth."

Another resident said it would suit the new Devon Council to have Okehampton as the headquarters in the centre of the county "just like Spain has Madrid as its capital".

Maps of the new authorities show how Devon Council is wrapped around the greater Exeter area going into east Devon.

The district council in east Devon used to have its offices in Sidmouth but spent nearly £9m on new offices that council staff moved into in 2020.

Out on Honiton High Street, John Vincent said the question should be "less about where the centre should be and more about what it is they plan to do".

He said: "What are we going to do to support our local government and ourselves and our society, rather than what are they going to do to us."

Hairdresser Shirley Parsons admitted finding a new headquarters was no easy feat.

She said: "It is what it is and at my age you have to accept these things because there's not a lot you're going to be able to do about it.

"I really don't know where the headquarters should go - it will need a lot of thinking about."

Councils have now been asked to work together on drawing up plans for ward boundaries and for managing the transition to four new councils.

The government has asked the chief executive of Devon County Council, Donna Manson, to be in charge of the "implementation team".

But at the same time, Devon County Council has started a legal process to try to get the government to reconsider its plans for how Devon should be carved up.

If the reorganisation goes ahead as planned there will be elections for all of the new councils across Devon in May 2027 with the new authorities taking control in April 2028.

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