There appears to be 7 people requiring a house now. In 4-10 year’s time it is thought likely that about 30 people would be looking for houses to rent or buy, mainly starter homes.

Unemployment in this rural area is not a big problem with only one respondent being unemployed. Some 35% of respondents were employees and a large 31% were self-employed. This reflects the largely rural nature of the area, with agriculture employing 55% of the respondents and tourism a further 12%. On the question of whether people were thinking of becoming self-employed only 3 of the 97 respondents said yes. The main obstacles to being self-employed were said to be lack of start-up finance followed by a need for business skills training.

Most employment is at or close to home with few (12%) having to travel more than 10 miles to their place of work.

The rural location also dictates the large number of vehicles owned by people. Most families have more than one car with agricultural vehicles also contributing to the total of 180 cars for 111 households. Roughly an equal number of vehicles are kept in garages and in the open on private land. Only 4% (8 vehicles) are kept on public roads or in car parks. Although there was only one household without a car, some transport difficulties were mentioned in other sections of this report.

Some 37% of adult respondents (83 in number) are interested in vocational training, especially New Technology/Computing (39% of responses or 32 people) and professional management (31% or 25 people). Almost all those requiring training would be able to go to Okehampton.

Over one-third of you (74 people) think existing provision for vocational training is poor. However, some 21% (45 people) thought it was good and the same number thought it was reasonable.