WEST Somerset Council has called on local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger to fight the district's corner after he accused the council of shirking its responsibility to protect coastal communities.

Conservative district councillors said the district's Tory MP could help by pushing for more central government funding and by identifying more cash for coastal protection schemes.

They were reacting to a statement by Mr Liddell-Grainger that he would ask Government Ministers to force them to take action.

Last Friday, the Free Press reported that the council was planning to pull out of a £600,000 scheme to try to stop the cliff-top Blue Anchor Hotel from falling into the sea.

And later that day, Mr Liddell-Grainger issued a statement saying he would do all he could to force the council to protect the business.

He criticised the council and said he would be raising the matter with the Government's Environment Secretary Liz Truss and Eric Pickles, the minister responsible for local government.

But Cllr Anthony Trollope-Bellew, the district council's lead member for environment, this week urged the MP to work with the council and to support it at Government level.

"He could help us greatly by asking Liz Truss to put pressure on more appropriate agencies to lead and manage projects such as this, and by asking Eric Pickles to fund rural authorities like West Somerset at levels similar to urban authorities," he said.

"We need greater financial resilience.

"We are very open to meetings with our MP and would welcome the opportunity to brief him fully on why we are considering making such a difficult decision on Blue Anchor's coastal protection."

As we reported last Friday, councillors will be asked at next week's full council meeting to pull the plug on the scheme.

Officers say the financial risks faced by the authority are too great and the Environment Agency's insistence that work starts on the scheme before April next year is an "impossibly tight deadline".

The council has been working in partnership with the owners of the Blue Anchor Hotel and Somerset County Council to draw up a plan to protect the cliffs.

Some £200,000 had been pledged by the partners towards the cost of extending the sea wall, providing rock armour to break up the power of the waves and to pin certain sections of the cliff to improve stability.

The district council was hoping to secure the bulk of the funding from the Environment Agency but said it now faced no choice but to withdraw from the funding process.

In his statement, Mr Liddell-Grainger said the council was "utterly ridiculous" to allow the hotel to fall into the sea.

"The Blue Anchor Hotel is living on borrowed time - one good storm with the wind in the wrong direction could see it fatally undermined and passing the point of no return," he said.

"If this is the attitude of West Somerset then we can assume that every inch of vulnerable coastline in the district is now under threat as well.

"I am not prepared to tolerate this shirking of responsibility on such a crucial issue as this and I am taking the matter up immediately at ministerial level with a request that West Somerset Council be forced to progress the scheme."

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the district council refuted any suggestion it was failing in its duty to protect coastal communities.

A spokesman said officers had worked "exhaustively" to find a workable and affordable solution to erosion at Blue Anchor.

"The high financial risks and deadlines for complex procurement procedures have forced the council to consider calling a halt to its proposed bid for Environment Agency funding," said the spokesman.

"The council is the smallest in England with one of the largest geographical areas and, as a result, does not have the financial resources of larger authorities with bigger populations.

"West Somerset Council would have had to underwrite any bid for funding the Blue Anchor coastal protection scheme which could expose the authority to unacceptable levels of financial risk.

"As a result, councillors will be recommended later this month not to proceed with the project."

Cllr Tim Taylor, the council's leader, added: "In recent years, West Somerset Council has done everything it can to protect services for local people and to protect taxpayers' hard-earned money.

"However, we are seeing huge reductions in our external funding and our own ability to raise funding is limited by the capping of Council Tax increases.

"To be blunt, as a small sparsely populated rural authority, West Somerset Council is underfunded and cannot afford to undertake expensive projects no matter how desirable they are.

"It does not have the resources to undertake wide ranging coastal protection and harbour maintenance.

"If our MP expects West Somerset Council to invest in such projects, we ask him to help us identify funding sources and promote West Somerset Council's case in Westminster.

"These are two of the things he could do for the benefit of the residents of West Somerset."