About 90 residents attended last week's Bridport concept plan community meeting, with the majority opposed to Dorset Council plans to investigate rezoning a 22-hectare parcel of of foreshore land from recreational to commercial.

Dorset Mayor Barry Jarvis said that the feeling from the meeting was ``very negative, in the sense that they didn’t want anything to happen to the place.

He said that the council was looking at rezoning the land to open it up for a potential developer.

``This would bring with it jobs and encourage more people to live in the town permanently and grow the economy, rather than just short-term holidaying visitors,'' he said.

Bridport Hotel publican Robert Edwards said that the majority of residents attending the meeting were opposed to any change, but without it, the town could not fulfil its potential.

``The question I keep asking is, `If it’s not for tourism, what else is going to bring people to the town'?’’ he said.

Resident Trevor Priestly said he believed the council would ignore the residents who were against rezoning plans and do whatever they wanted.

He said that businesses struggled through winter and any development and business that opened on that site would eventually sit empty.

Mr Priestly said that he was not opposed to all development but was against anything on the foreshore and the north-east had to be better marketed for tourists,