PLANS for Watchet to keep its library open are in the balance because of a wrangle over ownership of the building.

Watchet Town Council wants to form a Community Library Partnership (CLP) to run the library, which otherwise faced closure as part of sweeping library service changes put forward by Somerset County Council.

But it wants West Somerset Council to transfer the building’s freehold to the town council rather than lease it, arguing that the building was gifted to the people of the town as a library and that the district council is only its trustee.

Town council chairman Cllr John Irven raised the matter at the county council’s scrutiny committee on Tuesday, telling members: “Watchet Town Council have reiterated that we require a freehold transfer and that if this is not forthcoming, West Somerset Council will be causing the closure of Watchet Library.”

According to the town council, the library building was gifted to the town by benefactor Leonard Stoate in 1951.

Read the full story in today’s Free Press.