BEAMINSTER residents are being asked how best to make use of the Yarn Barton Centre in Fleet Street.

The town council has agreed to take it on for a trial period of six months after the community learning centre was forced to fold through lack of funding.

Now it is being run by a team of 27 volunteers, headed by Sally Samuel, who keeps it open for two hours a day from Monday to Friday.

At last week’s annual parish meeting, outgoing town council chairman Isabel Maling asked for ideas on using the centre.

She said: “We need to know from the town what you see as its future. It doesn’t have to make money but it has got to pay its way and that will happen only if it is used. We need extra ideas.”

It was too early to know what the running costs were as it had only been running 36 days, added Coun Maling.

It was already being used as an information centre and figures showed last year there were 1,447 enquiries and in the last 36 days, when it was only open from 10am to noon, 280 people had come in.

One suggestion was that it could be used in liaison with the police as a place to leave messages. Others suggested it would be more use as a TIC if it was open Friday afternoons and Saturdays.

Mrs Samuel said if they could get the volunteers they would be happy to open longer.

She said they already gave out information on bus and train times, bed and breakfast accommodation, issued parking permits, acted as a box office, had computers to use, photocopying and printing facilities and displayed posters.