A PETITION signed by over 200 Minehead residents, calling for the lease on the Blenheim Gardens café to be stopped and the property handed back to the town, was delivered to Somerset West and Taunton council this week.

The petition reads: “SWT are about to sign a 20-year lease with the owners of Bar 21 to run the café in Blenheim Gardens. The people of Minehead didn’t ask for this. We weren’t consulted.

"Our beautiful Blenheim Gardens, largely unchanged for 100 years, are a place where families with children can safely play and where the elderly can sit and relax. Let’s keep it that way.”

A spokesman for the organisers of the petition said: “We have raised many questions with SWT about how the 2020 tender was conducted, its fairness and legality. Many questions remain unanswered and the file has been sent to the Ombudsman.

“Despite the applicant getting the green light over two years ago to repair and reopen the cafe it’s still full of holes. One of the reasons became clear in August last year when Bar21 submitted a planning application to turn the cafe into a 100 seat restaurant open seven days a week, 7am to 11pm.

“Unsurprisingly, this plan met considerable resistance with over 60 objections on the SWT planning portal.”