Dorchester town councillors say they are being kept in the dark about future plans for the town centre and the town market.

The authority wants the return of the historic market Charter from the district council before it is disbanded next year.

Town councillors at this week’s policy committee meeting said talks seemed to be getting nowhere and most town councillors were excluded from discussions at district council level about the future of the town centre.

Said Mayor Cllr Susie Hosford: “It’s not just getting the Charter, we also have to have somewhere to hold a market…we need to agree a suitable amount of allotted space.”

Said Cllr Alistair Chisholm: “They don’t want to make a decision…the people of the town are being let down again by the district council.”

Town clerk Adrian Stuart said that anything which was not transferred from the West Dorset District Council prior to the new Dorset Council coming into being in April 2019 would go to the new unitary Dorset Council.

He said that as the time was approaching when the district council’s ability to make decisions was overtaken by the arrival of the shadow authority there might be pressure for a quick deal – the Market Charter for agreement to run some services, such as toilets.

Cllr Molly Rennie said that a special meeting had been promised to talk about the Charter but “it is proving difficult to progress”.

“It’s so difficult, nothing moves forward. They might deliberately be going slow, you just don’t know.”

Cllr Rennie said that much of the problem about the market was where it should be located in the future with the district council talking, behind closed doors, about shopping and a multi-level car park on the Fairfield site.

“They keep meeting and we don’t know what they are talking about..it’s crucial to the future of the market that we know what vision they have.

“The places we think might be available, might not be.”

The committee decided to continue to press the district council for a decision on the market Charter which gives the town council the right to run markets in the county town – something which town councillors claim was granted to Dorchester, not the district council.