A planning application is to be submitted for a brand new, long-awaited community space in a South Hams village.

Ermington Parish Council has resolved to submit a full application for a new village hall on the playing fields on the eastern edge of the village.

The decision means the council is allocating up to £10,000 to pay for surveys that need to be submitted to planning authority South Hams District Council with the application.

The hall will replace the Reading Rooms as the village’s main community space, and the decision marks a major milestone in a long journey.

Earlier plans had involved buying land adjacent to the Reading Rooms and extending the building in some way. But access and parking constraints led the councillors and residents involved in the project to reconsider, and after much investigation and community consultation, they settled on the playing fields site instead.

Discussing whether or not to proceed to a full planning application at a recent meeting, parish council chairman Cllr John Kerslake told members they needed to be happy with the figures, and happy that the public had been adequately consulted.

Councillors felt there had been extensive consultation with villagers by various means, and the group working on the project had been clear and transparent about what it was doing throughout the process. One or two councillors also referred to a "sense of frustration" among residents responding to consultations about the relatively slow pace at which the scheme was moving forward.

Speaking afterwards, Cllr Kerslake acknowledged that progress might not always have been as quick as some parishioners would have liked. He said building a village hall was one of the trickiest projects a parish council could take on, and this decision constituted a major step forward.

He said: "These are big decisions involving large sums of money, and we have to take them on a very considered basis. We need to look at the impact on the village, the financial side of things and everything else very carefully.

"Before we submit the planning application we need to look at how much everything will cost, and think about what surveys are needed and who will carry them out. It’s about using parish funds properly.

"The Reading Rooms have difficult access and no car parking, which would limit use compared to what we could offer elsewhere. Parking is a major issue, and we want to make the facilities available to everyone, not just people with strong legs who can get up the steps."

The village hall action group carried out a programme of consultation throughout last year, including public meetings and a survey. The group also undertook an ’options appraisal’ assessing the merits of various possible sites for the new hall.