WATCHET’S £7 million East Quay community project is on target to open this summer – it is hoped in the school holidays – despite delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the scheme’s developers, the Onion Collective, said this week.

The building will house a gallery, restaurant, studios, accommodation pods and spaces for local businesses and community activities.

“We’re excited that we are on track to open this summer,” said Onion Collective director Georgie Grant. “We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone involved in helping us to get to this point. We are very much looking forward to welcoming people to enjoy this new space.”

The three-year project to transform the former derelict dockside has been dogged by controversy. Earlier this year, a social media campaign claimed that the structure ‘looked like Legoland’ was ‘a complete waste of money’ and would destroy the traditional image of the town.

But many of the hundreds of posts on social media platforms backed the project and hailed it as ‘striking, bold and futuristic’.

The development has been funded by The Coastal Communities Fund, Arts Council England, Magnox and the Esmee Fairburn Foundation, and is designed by Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio, with Ellis Williams Architects.

The building has been conceived of as ‘a kind of village, housing the gallery and studios, but also with numerous outdoor public walkways that lead a visitor up to each floor and out onto small terraces and viewing areas to admire the views of the Bristol Channel and surrounding Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park’.

Five ‘accommodation pods’, two standing on stilts above the building, have been designed for ‘the adventurous traveller’.

A spokesman for the project said: “Each pod is bespoke and inspired by Watchet. The pods invite participation either by swapping found objects, joining in with an art piece or playing with the furniture.”

Future tenants of the building include artisan paper makers Two Rivers Paper, making hand-made paper that visitors can watch through a viewing window. Geckoella, a geology and ecology company will run a fossil workshop.

Other tenants will range from fine artists to carpenters to photographers. Visitors will be able to see makers at work as well as stay in the pods, eat at the restaurant and join in events including music, theatre, crafts and talks.