A £250,000 local appeal towards the cost of modernising Minehead’s RNLI lifeboat station has moved a step nearer its target with a donation from Taunton freemasons.

Members of the Richard Huish Lodge visited the station on Sunday to hand over a cheque for £2,120 to a delighted Minehead RNLI chairman Richard Newton.

He said: “The support the station gets from the Minehead community is legendary but over the last few months we have seen individuals and organisations from all over Somerset and beyond making valuable contributions to the fund-raising effort as well - and for that we are hugely grateful. It’s extremely gratifying that so many people regard this as such a worthwhile project - and want to do whatever they can to see it become reality.”

The local fund-raising target represents just under a quarter of what the RNLI is spending on modernising and extending the 120-year old listed boathouse which provides 24-hour rescue cover from Hinkley Point to Lynmouth.

Both Minehead’s lifeboats – an Atlantic 85 rigid inflatable and a D class inflatable – are state-of-the art craft but facilities at the 120-year old station had long been inadequate for the needs of the crew.