While so many positive comments about Watchet Festival were expressed by so many this weekend, its future is “an unknown quantity” according to Parsonage Farm tenant, Richard Burnell.

Part of the farm has been earmarked for building 250 homes through a Taunton-based development company who have been negotiating with the Taunton and Somerset West Council Planning Committee.

Mr Burnell, who was born and raised on the family farm from the days it was part of the Wyndham Estate, told the Free Press: “I don’t get involved in the running of the festival and leave it to their committee. All I know is that building on part of the farm is inevitable.

The terms of my lease allow them to take it for development more or less when they want to. But when that will be is anybody’s guess. None of us has a crystal ball.”

This philosophy was shared by Festival Committee spokesman Mark Bale: “We had already decided not to have a festival in 2023 in order to leave the land fallow to recover.

“But with so many changes happening in Watchet, combined with the global crisis and the phenomenal cost of putting on such an event, who knows what will happen in two years time?”

Mr Burnell added:”What better site could you have? It is the crown of Watchet live events and has become so very popular with most people one speaks to.

“I just get on with my farming, but it would be nice if the committee find a way of putting it on again.”