WATCHET Marina’s mud problems, which have dogged the project since it opened 20 years ago, will be finally solved in little more than a month, operators the Marine Group claimed this week.

The company was responding to boat owners’ complaints that, despite a Marine Group pledge made in April last year - that the marina would have at least 1.5 metres of retained water at all times by October 2021 - all 60 boats currently using the facility are still aground in the mud up to 16 hours a day.

As reported in last week’s Free Press, the company’s 50ft water-injection dredger CMS Doonhamer - on contract to Somerset West and Taunton council - has removed 100,000 tons of mud from the outer harbour and, with a smaller dredger, CMSInnovation, is working on mud on the western side of the marina.

The company said that the plan was now to return to the eastern side of the marina where all boats are moored, and remove the liquified mud which is causing the problems.

One sailor with a yacht moored in the marina, who asked not to be named, said: “The mud has been allowed to return to the eastern side of the marina and boats are now afloat for only around two hours either side of the tide and are high and dry for the rest of the time and splattered with mud in strong winds.”

Another boat-owner added: “The problem has been that the dredgers have been constantly been taken away from Watchet to do other work, allowing the mud to build up again and nullify a lot of the dredging that had been done.

“They should have stayed in Watchet until the job was completed.”

But a spokesman for Watchet Boat Owners’ Association told the Free Press: “We can understand the frustration about boats still being in the mud but in fact it’s going down dramatically in the harbour and we can see real progress although it is perhaps a bit slower than we had hoped.

“The mud has been softened, which will make its removal from the east side of the harbour much easier - and that is just about to start. There is a definite plan to get the job done.”

In April last year, shortly after taking over the marina from the previous operator Tim Taylor, Marine Group director Chris Odling-Smee said: “The plans for the year are all about getting to the point in October where we pronounce the marina effectively rehabilitated and have impounded water at all times.

“We are looking at 1.5 to 2 metres and possible more in some areas.”

This week, Mr Odling-Smee told the Free Press: “The works have been completed later than planned due to the fact we have been working on external dredging contracts. But all areas will be fully watered and serviceable within the next six weeks. Thereafter, dredged depths will be maintained in future.”

He added: “Across the basin as a whole there was excess sediment of more than 70’000 m3 when works commenced.

“To date more than 50’000 m3 of material has been removed. This equates to an average sediment level reduction of well over two metres across the harbour.

“The CMS Doonhamer dredger has recently been working at the western end of the harbour where there was considerable silt accumulation. Of this dredged material, 70% leaves the harbour as required with 30 per cent resettling within the harbour.

“It is this material that is temporarily re-silting some of the previously dredged areas. This material is however extremely mobile and is being readily re-dredged by CMS Innovation.”

Once the area is properly dredged the Marine Group plan, with the council’s permission, to increase the marina’s capacity with more pontoons.