A SOCIAL care academy set up in Minehead with a £3.3 million Government grant may be closed as Somerset Council said there was not enough demand for it, with only 37 training sessions delivered last year.

The care training facility was opened in the former Seahorse Centre, in Stephenson Road, after the council received funding in January, 2023.

It was intended to be an outreach for a health and social care academy being created in Bridgwater’s old community hospital, for which the council received a total of £19.7 million.

The council wanted to make training easier to access and more closely linked to local workforce needs.

The Seahorse Centre was later sold to Avon and Somerset Constabulary, which shared use of the building and relocated the town’s police station to it.

Council head of regeneration Lara Bell said: “We are considering whether or not this training continues, and it might be this has to close down because there is no ongoing need or demand we have identified for the facility at this point in time.

“We found out during the delivery of training packages at the Seahorse Centre that participants were actually having difficulty getting there.

“In terms of it being a facility that could wash its face for continuing in the long-term, it was not going to be viable to continue with that activity in that location, unfortunately.”

A council spokesperson said it was ‘not expecting to continue pilot use’ of the Minehead site and was ‘investigating future uses’ for the facility.

But, Somerset Cllr Frances Nicholson, who represents Exmoor, accused the council of ‘giving up on West Somerset’.

Cllr Nicholson said: “Regeneration in the Minehead and West Somerset area is hugely important, and it is also an area where there is a great need for carers, given the elderly nature of the population.”