MEMBERS of Watchet’s campaigning Silt and Mud Group have closed down the two-year-old organisation amid claims that they had been not been included in plans to rid the town’s harbour of its growing mud problems.

At a special winding-up meeting last Tuesday, October 15, it was claimed that the 83-member group had been “consistently cold-shouldered” by the harbour authorities and by the district council’s Watchet Mud Group, and that their pioneering mud removal system was not given a fair trial.

“We have been deliberately shut down and ignored,” said group treasurer Robin Nuttall, a former town councillor, who chaired the meeting.

“It is a disgrace that there has never been any acknowledgement of the work done by our chairman, the late Brian Mitchell, who was a key figure in mud research and helped to bring the problem to public attention.

“Without his determination and effort, we would still be watching the mud take over our harbour and nobody would be doing a thing about it.”

He added that he was at a loss to understand why the S and M Group had never been consulted by the Watchet Mud Group or been invited to join it.

A Watchet Mud Group spokesman told the Free Press that they would have welcomed input from the S and M Group but none had been offered: “We are always open to sharing ideas and co-operating on projects – it’s in everyone’s interests to take all the help we can get.”

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