PLANS to reopen Bridport's main line rail link are heading for the buffers unless land is set aside now for a town centre terminal, project leaders have warned.

Providing a train service to Maiden Newton as well as a narrow-gauge link to West Bay depend on a corridor of land through the South West Quadrant, they say.

But plans for the area make no provision for this - and Jurassic Coast Railway project members say they can't go ahead without it.

"It is the catalyst - it is absolutely paramount," director Nigel Ewens told a meeting of the town council's plans committee, when members considered the South West Quadrant scheme.

He said the first phase of the project would be to build the Brit Valley railway from Bridport to West Bay and then they hoped to go north to join the mainline at Maiden Newton, some nine miles away.

But they would never be able to achieve that goal unless they could have a track through the South West Quadrant, he warned.

Councillor Maggie Ray thought it would be a greatly missed opportunity if they did not set aside a corridor for the railway - whether or not it ever happened.

Coun Charles Wild said he thought a railway would 'desecrate' the valley between Bridport and West Bay.