A SCHOOLBOY is preparing to lead a protest march through the streets of Lyme Regis.

Leon Howe has joined the fight to save the Three Cups Hotel and is urging other children to speak up too.

The 10-year-old Mrs Ethelston’s Primary School pupil has branded the dilapidated state of the Broad Street hotel as ‘outrageous’ and said he was spurred on following a public meeting on the issue.

Leon took the microphone at the meeting in the Woodmead Halls on Friday and told the 235 people who attended how concerned he was.

Leon said: “I found the meeting very interesting. When the person who lives next door to it said things had been falling off the roof and how it is a really big fire risk, that just spurred me on.

“Before this, the Three Cups was just a building, but now it is a really important building to me because I don’t think it should be abused like this. It is a very historical building because Tolkien, General Eisenhower, and Charlie Chaplin stayed there.

“I am extremely angry – I don’t want to be my mum’s age and it Leon, of Silver Street, first became interested in the Grade II Listed hotel after listening to other concerned residents and is now doing a school project on it.

“When I saw the leaflet that showed ivy growing inside the building, I thought that was absolutely outrageous,” he said.

His mother Rikey Austin, who owns Alice’s Bear Shop in Broad Street said: “He comes to the shop after school and he was hearing how passionate people felt about it.

“He said he wanted to go to the meeting but I didn’t know if it was a good idea. But he asked if he could have a couple of minutes to put his argument to me. He sat down at the table and said, ‘If we don’t all fight together as a town, I am going to be as old as you and the Three Cups will still be closed’.”

Since the meeting, Leon has begun rallying his friends to join the campaign and is now planning a protest march through the town.

He said: “Anyone should be able to help because it’s not just adults who can be part of the campaign.

“I have already got two people from my school who say they want to help. I am hoping to get lots of people to march along the street and maybe the Cobb and make banners. I think it might urge more people to join our struggle.”

Leon already has the full backing of his family. Mum Rikey said: “I have to support him because he is right and we have to work together as a town. If a 10-year-old boy can feel strongly enough to want to march through the streets in protest, then we should all be marching behind him.

“I have never seen him so passionate about anything.”

He is also writing letters to the hotel owner Palmers Brewery, to West Dorset MP Oliver Letwin, and even Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons, stars of film The French Lieutenant’s Woman, which featured the hotel.

“I will tell the Palmer brothers I think we can beat them,” said Leon.

And like his fellow campaigners, Leon is not impressed with the brewery’s plans to revamp the building with a restaurant, shops and flats.

“I want it to be a hotel because that’s what it originally was,” he said. “I feel quite annoyed with the Palmer brewery and with West Dorset District Council because they are not really doing anything. With their help we could make that place into a really good hotel.”

To join Leon’s campaign you can email him at the.smidget@ googlemail.com or leave a message at Alice’s Bear Shop on 01297 444589.