TOWN councillors in Watchet want to resume work on a neighbourhood plan which was abandoned more than a decade ago.

A council working group started a neighbourhood plan in 2012-13 and three of its members still serve as councillors.

But it was at the time when ‘fundamentally different ideas’ were being put forward by rival organisations for the then-main development site, the East Quay.

Councillors suspended work on the plan until an outcome was decided for the East Quay, and although it was not resumed, it remained in the approved forward plan.

A neighbourhood plan sits alongside any local plan developed by Somerset Council and helps to shape the detail of what development can be allowed where.

It also allows parish councils to claim a larger share of any community infrastructure money paid to the county authority by housing developers.

Now, councillors have agreed to ask Somerset Council to formally designate the whole of the parish as a ‘neighbourhood area’ for the purpose of preparing a neighbourhood plan.

They also agreed the Watchet Coastal Community Team’s (WCCT) working group should act as an advisory committee for the council in helping to prepare the plan with deputy town clerk Annie Robinson working with it.

Finance and staffing committee chairman Cllr Peter Murphy, who is the council’s representative on WCCT, said the team’s working group was keen to help and advise the council.

He said in West Somerset, Stogursey had already completed a neighbourhood plan, and Cannington was in the final stages of one, while across Somerset 53 other parishes were at various stages.

Cllr Murphy said WCCT members recently discussed planning in Watchet and viewed a video by Andrew Homer of a vision for the paper mill site, and Kate Jeffries, of Geckoella, and ecologist Paul Rutter, gave presentations on the town’s green spaces and their importance.