SIR — I regret the rather one-sided comments included in last week's Free Press report "Watchet's East Quay scheme on the rocks" in which an opponent of the original scheme remarked that "everyone involved has finally come to their senses".

The original scheme proposed by Urban Splash has as its cornerstone the requirement that it would generate 30-plus jobs to kick-start the economic regeneration of Watchet.

The East Quay was chosen because is the prime site in Watchet, and it is where the economic and commercial revival of Watchet was planned to take place.

There have, however, always been objections to the development of this site, originally from the boat owners and latterly from the marina operator.

The reason for their opposition is that they treat this land, land adjacent and the associated harbour hinterland, as their own particular playground and refuse to accept the wider responsibility that this land has for the regeneration of Watchet as a whole, for all its citizens who live throughout the town, and to West Somerset itself.

Urban Splash's scheme which was supported by the county council, district council, town council, the Rural Development Authority and the Government Office of the South West, was unfortunately scuppered not by the Luddite few but by the global recession which is playing havoc with our own economy and that of our international neighbours, ref Ireland, Italy and Greece.

To greet this unfortunate turn of events with glee is not an enlightened approach, because the loss of potential jobs and prosperity and the persistence of a benefit culture leading to a sense of hopelessness and lack of positive opportunity can only fuel anti-social acts of vandalism and crime that no sane person can endorse.

It might be uncomfortable and difficult for some people to share their own aspirations for the "good life" with others less favourably blessed, but at least the proposed development of the East Quay offered an opportunity to do just that, before our financial system went into meltdown and became a stumbling block.

That a new, revised scheme is to be advanced in accordance with more modest aims and funding is to be welcome as long as it will not be met by the same entrenched views and opposition of the selfish few whose own interests persistently try to override those of the majority.

David Banks,

Watchet.