WATCHET has been awarded a £240,000 grant to help solve its social problems, it was announced this week.

The place-based social action programme, created by Watchet’s Coastal Communities Team (WCCT), is one of only ten projects in the country to receive an award from the National Lottery Community Fund and the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The funding will support volunteering and social action in Watchet over three years, and is the result of a year’s work by the WCCT to establish what the local difficulties were in the town and suggest ways in which they could be solved.

WCCT chairman Peter Murphy said: “Our bid was called ‘Watchet Connects’ and at its heart is an ambition to build on the huge strength of community spirit we are lucky to have in Watchet.

“The projects we will now deliver will build on that spirit of energy and collective problem solving to help tackle some of our most difficult issues.”

The grant will finance six projects that include young people, peer tutors and a ‘mini university’, community transport, information-sharing, and what are described as deliberative democracy and digital gaming.

Full report in the Free Pfress (February 22).