PENSIONER and council critic Patricia Holden sparked a police alert when she staged a sit-in at a meeting on Thursday. The special meeting of West Somerset District Council was to rubber stamp the choice of developer to turn Minehead's Vulcan Road car park into a shopping complex and create between 200 and 300 largely low paid jobs. The initial debate was on an agreement with Lincoln-based Simons Developments for the estimated £6.5 million sale of the land. But after councillors had voted to exclude the press and public from the debate, Mrs Holden refused to leave the council chamber. And she steadfastly ignored the efforts of several councillors and officers who tried to remonstrate her. The tension rose further when she suddenly collapsed, fell to the floor and had to be tended by Cllr Eddie May, a trained Red Cross first aider. Chief executive Tim Howes had already called the police to possibly remove her but two officers, who arrived within minutes, did not have to intervene as a revived Mrs Holden was helped to her feet and eventually left the building. Earlier she had addressed councillors and criticised their decision to hold part of the debate behind closed doors. "Asset stripping is never popular ," she said. Mrs Holden compared the council's behaviour with the way Somerset County Council was handling the development of its market/station site in Minehead. "They say they want people to tell them what they want to see there - this is public consultation." Mrs Holden warned that seats would be lost at the next election and that the council was engaging in a charade. "You no longer command the respect of electors," she said. "Minehead and its surroundings is a tourism area - it lives by tourism, not shopping. But if people can't park, they can't shop." Williton parish councillor Tad Mandziej also questioned the council's right to exclude the public from part of the debate. But the authority's monitoring officer Bruce Lang explained that commercially sensitive information would be discussed. He said the council was trying to be as transparent as possible and would allow everyone back into the chamber for the final round of discussion and the vote. This week Mrs Holden said of her actions at the meeting: "I believe that the only hope for a decent world is through democracy. "When I see democracy abused I do whatever I can to draw attention to it. "This does not come without personal cost, however. "Everyone has a capital sum of courage which is exhausted by expenditure." The meeting was also attended by at least half a dozen teenagers who had been hoping to raise the issue of the BMX track, currently located just off the Vulcan Road car park, but which will be lost with the sale to Simons. They were later offered an olive branch by council leader Steven Pugsley, who said he had asked for a report to be prepared in time for this week's cabinet meeting to highlight some of the youth facilities that would be funded by the sale. Councillors were understood to have been given four options for the Vulcan Road development from Simons, including one featuring a substantial Tesco, and opted for a medium sized supermarket, four non-food outlets and a restaurant. The developers' suggestion of a Lidl foodstore, however, has been rejected by councillors and the prospect of Asda moving onto the site is now thought to be a strong possibility. Cllr Pugsley said it had been decided that only land in the authority's ownership would be developed. He said selecting a developer - two other companies were also shortlisted - had been a delicate balance of judgement. Simons had been the developer councillors had been most impressed with because the company appeared to understand the council's needs and the public's views. Cllr Pugsley said it had been felt that to allow an existing food retailer - Tesco - to have a presence on the site would not be a good thing as the idea was to try and provide choice and create competition. The preferred scheme also did not feature a large DIY store and garden centre. Cllr Pugsley said he did not believe a discount foodstore - Lidl - would offer competition or attract other shoppers to Minehead or benefit the town or district. The preferred option would guarantee some "linkage" to the town centre, the progression of town centre management and bring new shoppers to stop the current leakage to other retail centres. The profits from the sale would also help provide the youth facilities that had been planned and now needed to be brought to fruition. But Cllr Jess Griffith, who with Cllrs David Gliddon and Jenny Hill, voted against the sale of the land to Simons, said the council had failed to demonstrate it had weighed up the benefits of the scheme against the costs. "I am certainly none the clearer now what projects will be funded by this - there has been talk of £1m on broadband, another £1m on youth facilities. "But this is going to have major repercussions for the town and I am astonished at the foolhardiness of going ahead with this when we don't really know what we are going to do with the money. "We should surely think about what we want to do so that we can weigh up the benefits." Cllr Griffith said the council was intending to take a decision that it said would help fund youth facilities but that would destroy existing provision, the BMX track. And she described the profits that would be made from the sale as "paltry", compared to the impact it would have on the town centre. Cllr Griffith said she felt that a discount food retailer would be complementary to the existing supermarket provision but the council had opted for a medium sized store that retail consultants had said would not be needed until 2011. She said the decision would undermine the town centre and make it near impossible for some small businesses to survive. "Some small traders - if they are lucky - will make it, if not they can earn the minimum wage in a supermarket on Vulcan Road." Cllr Gliddon also criticised the speed at which the council was deciding to press ahead with the sale, claiming no-one really knew what was on the "shopping list" it was supposed to fund. "We are selling this land for no good reason." Cllr Gliddon said the assurance that turning Vulcan Road into a retail park would help to regenerate the town centre was nothing more than a pipe dream because the site was just too far from the centre. And he said the majority of jobs created from the development would pay no more than the minimum wage. "We are selling this strategic piece of land to get jobs at low levels of money." But Cllr Foxhuntley said the decision to sell the site had been taken some time ago. "We are now coming to the end of the road and we need to go ahead and get on with the job." Former deputy leader Colin Hill, making a rare appearance in the council chamber since losing his county council seat six months ago, insisted that if out of town shopping complexes destroyed town centres, it would be happening nationwide. "And it is not," he declared. Cllr Hill said the additional outlets might create competition for jobs and drive up wages, admitting that as a town centre trader for 25 years previously he could not remember paying staff anything other than the minimum wage. But he urged existing businesses in Minehead to be "brave and bold". "I have got the guts to say that this is the best thing that can happen to Minehead and the town centre." Cllr Hill said regeneration was not just about ploughing money in to help town centre businesses thrive but about the attitude of the businesses themselves, who had to change. In a recorded vote, the recommendation to sell to Simons with the preferred option for development was carried 16 - 3.