DOG owners fighting a proposal to ban their pets from Watchet's Memorial Ground will have the chance to air their views in public at a special meeting in the town.

The town council, which is investigating the introduction of a dog exclusion order, announced this week that it would be holding an extraordinary council meeting at the end of March to decide what action to take.

A formal consultation process, giving people the chance to put their views on the proposal in writing, ended last Friday.

Council clerk Sarah Reed told the council's monthly meeting on Monday that she was recommending a period of calm before the extraordinary meeting to give her the opportunity to collate the information and prepare special councillor packs.

Although the date of the meeting has yet to be decided, councillors agreed that it would be held in the last week of March.

The venue has also yet to be decided but is likely to be either Knights Templar First School or the Methodist School Room.

But a suggestion by Mrs Reed that the normal public participation time in which people would have the opportunity to speak should be doubled from 15 minutes to 30 minutes was rejected by councillors.

Concerned that people on both sides of the debate would have insufficient time in which to put their points across, councillors opted instead to make a decision on the length of time allowed for public participation at the start of the meeting.

People will be given two minutes each to speak but will have to notify the council 24 hours before the meeting, with the job of "managing" the time falling to council chairman Cllr Paul Chamberlain.

Cllr Dave Westcott said he believed that if only 30 minutes had been allocated, the meeting could find itself "bombarded" by one side or the other.

"There has to be a fair proportion of those for and against," he said.

"I think you will have more than 30 minutes of public participation."

But Cllr Chamberlain said he was concerned that if 200 people turned up and all wanted to speak, a total of 400 minutes would have to be allocated for public speaking time.

He said many people had already written to the council expressing their views.

"I don't see that having people talking endlessly on the night will help."

But Cllr Vincent Woods said no-one knew at this stage how many people would want to speak and it would be better to set the public participation time limit at the start of the meeting.

Mrs Reed told councillors: "This is such an emotive issue that you have to offer people the opportunity to speak."

If the council decides to press ahead with the ban, it would become an offence for anyone to take a dog onto the ground.

But opponents, who have already handed in a 130-signature petition against the proposal, claim the ground is the only accessible area in the town for disabled and elderly dog owners.

However, the council says it has received numerous complaints about dog mess, particularly from people playing sport on the ground.

In a town-wide survey carried out last year, the idea of banning dogs came out on top.

Although just 182 people responded to a questionnaire sent out by the council, 75 voted for a complete ban.

A total of 15 people backed a 'do nothing' option, 34 favoured dogs on leads, while 85 chose the suggestion of partial fencing.