Weston workers 'felt like criminals' after Old Town Quarry locked

Odette Williams said tenants were "standing around like spare dinner"

People who have been unexpectedly locked out of the building they work in say they "felt like criminals".

The Old Town Quarry in Weston-super-Mare was shut to the public by North Somerset Council earlier this week.

Workers, including café staff and artists, turned up to find the site locked with security guards in place. Many artists have artwork still inside.

"We were told the locks had been changed. We felt awful," said Odette Williams from Rowan Tree Tea Room.

"We felt like criminals because the security was there," she said. "We were standing around like spare dinner."

The quarry is closed to the public due to structural issues

Many tenants have tools, machinery and artwork inside

The council said it will demolish a structure - known as the "stone crushing building" - on the site in the autumn and that it will do surveys to confirm what would have to happen for the site to safely re-open.

However, many people say their work is stuck on site and they cannot access it.

Aaron Moffat, a stonemason who is based in the building, said he and others have no access to their tools or machinery.

Mr Moffat was on holiday when he got a phone call from someone else who worked on the site.

"The other tenants turned up for work that morning and we'd been locked out," he explained, adding that they were "just devastated".

"Our goal is to get back to where we belong," said Aaron Moffat

Bari W. Sprawshott, an amateur artist with Uphill Artists, who have been based at the Old Town Quarry, said they also had no notice of the closure.

The group had an exhibition at the site but now their paintings are locked inside.

Mr Sprawshott told BBC Radio Bristol: "Somebody went up to have a look. They were greeted [by a] gate with a new lock on it and two or three security guards standing behind it.

"It came as quite a shock," he added.

North Somerset Council said it was working to relocate the artists to a new venue.

Once improvements are done, it is planning to hand the operation of the site over to Weston Town Council.