A PROTEST march is being planned in Watchet for Sunday (August 30) as residents demand better housing for local people.

It will be part of a ‘Festival for Future Watchet’ event organised by community interest company Base for Life.

The afternoon march will start from the town’s harbour and finish at the former paper mill site off Brendon Road, which has lain empty since 2015.

Other activities will also be held on the Esplanade including banner making, a poetry competition, putting wishes on a ‘wishing tree’, and performances by a local choir.

The day has been designed to raise awareness of the housing situation in Watchet.

Base for Life chairman Liz McGrath said: “Our goal is to make Watchet more sustainable.

“In particular, we are focused on finding ways to provide housing which is affordable if you are on a local wage to rent or to buy.

“At the moment, neither is true unless you have social housing, and the social housing list across Somerset is very, very long.

“Ideally, we would like to build houses which their potential tenants can take part in building.

“We want to build houses which stay in community ownership and which are accessible to people on local wages.

“We would also like to have a learning hub where we could have apprenticeships so that young people can learn as well as live and work in this community.”

Ms McGrath said redeveloping the paper mill site to meet local needs was critically important for the local community.

She said with several greenfield sites in Watchet already being developed or targeted by housebuilders, it was essential to act now to ensure brownfield sites such as the paper mill were prioritised.

Ms McGrath said: “Part of our motivation for hurrying this forward is to stop building on arable land around the outside of the town.”