West Devon Council Offices at Tavistock! No one will shed a tear if that gets bulldozed.
Not even West Devon Council.
Good practice in doing this sort of thing could be seen in Manchester, during Metrolink planning and works. It would take me a while to look up the notes, but I recall that very early on in the process to build the extension to Manchester Airport, the local authority bought 3 houses on the edge of a development that would need to be demolished. They then used them as temporary accommodation for homeless families for a few years, until the operational need to shift them came about. In Oldham, the first works on the entirely new tram route through the town centre involved the construction of a Baptist Church and a funeral parlour to allow the subsequent demolition of both, rather than having services disrupted by trams running down the aisle. As both were an improvement on the original, all involved were satisfied with the results, and protracted legal wrangles were avoided.
The RFU did a similar thing when they were looking to expand the stadium at Twickenham.
There was a row of houses "in the way" which they gradually bought up when they became available and used as offices.
In the end there was one left and they basically went to the resident and said "how much do you want to move out?"
I believe Liverpool used a similar tactic years ago when they wanted to expand Anfield.
