CAMPAIGNERS fighting plans for a café at Dunster Castle claim the impact on existing catering outlets would be devastating and damage the village for a generation.

The Dunster Action Group - set up to oppose the possible development - made the claim after looking in detail at the results of research undertaken by castle owners the National Trust.

As revealed in last week's Free Press, consultants Turquoise Thinking, commissioned to look at the economic impact, had concluded that a café within the castle grounds would not stop people visiting the village - a fear voiced previously by opponents.

Of 400 people interviewed, almost 90 per cent said a café at the castle would not affect their likelihood to visit the village, with most people attracted to Dunster by the joint visitor package of castle and village.

But DAG spokesman and local trader Christine Moore described the results of the research as utterly devastating and far worse than those of the group's own survey undertaken earlier this year.

The trust's research revealed that 66 per cent of castle visitors questioned expressed some level of interest in using a castle café, which DAG has interpreted as a loss of 80,000 visitors from the village.

It also found a similar interest from 52 per cent of visitors to both the village and castle, which DAG fears could mean a loss of £819,000 in catering revenue alone, based on estimated annual visitor numbers of 225,00.

And DAG also predicts that with 73 per cent of those questioned saying they were intending to, or had taken refreshments in the village, if the castle took 52 per cent, then just 21 per cent would use the existing catering outlets.

Mrs Moore said castle property manager William Wake had always maintained that the most frequent request from castle visitors was to have a café on site.

But she said only 13 per cent of those surveyed said the facility would increase their satisfaction of visiting the castle.

The trust undertook the research largely to test opponents' fears that its proposals would "corral" visitors at the castle, a fear it believes it has disproved.

But Mrs Moore said DAG disagreed.

"The research underlines our fears with 92 per cent of visitors to the castle parking in the castle car park and an incredible 33 per cent of visitors to the village also using the facility.

"Corralling has clearly been going on for some time."

She added: "Nothing could prepare us for the gravity of these findings.

"Fifteen food-based businesses will suffer severe economic impact if catering is installed at the castle, including the trust's own tenants at Dunster Water Mill.

"Removing two thirds of our customers will inevitably result in redundancies and business closure, and despite the only optimistic statement that after leaving the castle café, visitors will come down to the village, the overwhelming reality and impact of the trust's proposals will damage our village for a generation.

"The cost in monetary terms could be as much as £1.1 million loss in Gross Domestic Product in the first year - the cost to the community's confidence and well being could be much more."

Mrs Moore said the trust could "have its cake and eat it" if it took up the suggestion of buying back the tenancy of the water mill, which also has a café.

But Mr Wake told the Free Press he could not discuss anything to do with the tenancy or lease publicly.

He described DAG's interpretation of the research results as "partial" and disputed many of the predicted consequences.

"The scale of the impact DAG describes is much bigger than anything we are planning to do - ten times bigger," said Mr Wake.

"Our proposal has always been for a modest café, selling teas, coffees and snacks."

Mr Wake said he had listened to the genuine concern that having a café would drastically reduce the number of visitors to the village and had commissioned the research, which had shown this would not be the case.

The concerns had primarily focused on the "corralling" of visitors and not any competition from a castle café.

"We are responding to customer demand and will now progress this, taking into account the sensitive setting, planning considerations and costs," he said.

"The castle is very important to the Dunster economy and the most important finding that the research gives is that to continue to thrive, the businesses in Dunster need to work together to promote Dunster and ensure that our visitors have a great time when they visit Dunster.

"What I want to do now is to work more effectively with the Dunster business community to achieve this."