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Protesters on easy street

The Plymouth-based regional Sunday Independent is celebrating with residents of a Cornish village after a successful campaign to get a bypass for the gridlocked community.

For 50 years, the inhabitants of Dobwalls on the busy A38 holiday trunk roadroute have been asking for a by-pass.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has now announced that the long-awaited scheme has received the green light after the Sunday Indy had backed the campaign.

Reporter Jon Couch gave publicity to the residents’ plight by covering roadside protests, which often saw the locals deliberately slowing down the traffic by continually working the Pelican crossing in the middle of the village.

Police allowed the protests on busy summer Saturdays for a limited time to allow the residents to make their point.

The Sunday Independent also printed banners and posters for campaigners touse.

And it covered a visit by protesters to London where they handed over a lengthy petition to roads minister Lord Whitty.

Former chairman of Dobwalls Parish Council, John Mellor, said: “‘May I personally, as the past chairman who started the bypass protests, thank Jon Couch and the Sunday Independent for all your support you have given us over the years.

“Your paper supplied us with splendid coverage throughout the campaign.”

The time scale for getting the bypass in place is quite long. But a spokesman for the Highways Agency said that while final plans had yet to be drawn up, it was hoped it would be in operation by 2005.

Reporter Jon, a 33-year-old former Royal Marine, is no stranger to fighting his readers’ corner.

Last year he spearheaded a campaign to get a fairer deal for the West Country’s OAPs and took a 16,000-strong petition to the doorstep of 10 Downing Street.

Jon also backed the drinkers of the Fountain Inn at Newbridge, near Penzancewho objected to St Austell Brewery calling time on their age-old watering hole. As a result of his stories, the brewery went back on its decision to sell the premises as being unviable for a pub.

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