WEST Somerset Council will maintain its ownership of Minehead's mothballed seafront visitor centre following a pre-emptive strike against Minehead Town Council's bid to take control of the facility.

Cabinet members were unanimous that the building should not be transferred to a third party, while any sale or rental agreement should take account of the going market rates.

The move was in direct response to Minehead Town Council's decision at the end of last month to ask the district council to transfer ownership of the currently defunct visitor information centre in Warren Road.

But the council's lead member for finance Cllr Kate Kravis said the cabinet decision should be seen as a positive and not a negative move against the town council.

She said the whole aim of the report was to provide clarity to ensure anyone interested in the centre knew exactly where they stood.

A myriad of restrictive covenants on the building prevent its use as anything other than a tourist information centre or other community-based purpose.

Explicit restrictions also prevent its use as a shop, hotel, pub, restaurant, amusement arcade or, going back to a condition imposed in 1935, a lunatic asylum or hospital for infectious diseases.

The convenants, in turn, impact on the value of the building, meaning the council would only be able to rent it out for a maximum of between £10,000 and £12,000 a year - without the convenants they could get up to £30,000.

Similarly, to sell the building, the council could only ask between £125,000 and £150,000 for it - convenant-free, that figure rises to £225,000 to £250,000.

But trying to remove the convenants, which in itself would prove expensive in legal costs, would be fraught with a whole new set of dangers.

The centre was built with £203,193 of European Regional Development Funding and there is a real risk the council could have to pay back some of the money if it sold the building or tried to maximise its value by removing the convenants.

Cllr Kravis said officers could only get "indications" from Government as to what would or would not trigger clawback of the grant funding.

She said the Government would only give a definitive answer once a firm proposal was on the table for the use of the building.

However, if the building remained as a tourist information centre or another community-based use was found, it was very unlikely any money would have to be returned.

Speaking at Wednesday's cabinet meeting, Cllr Kravis said: "A lot of councils have just closed their visitor information centres, we could have cut services and hidden under our desks until the bad headlines blew over.

"It's not a route we want to take. We want to save services and that comes with a host of trials and tribulations along the way.

"I cannot stress strongly enough that this is not about a lack of commitment to tourism services to Minehead.

"It doesn't restrict the use of the building as a visitor information centre - or any other building in Minehead for use as a visitor information centre."

The district council closed the flagship tourist information centre on Minehead seafront at the end of October and diverted all queries via Porlock's volunteer-run visitor centre.

However, as reported last month, the Porlock volunteers pulled the plug on the arrangement, claiming their efforts were undervalued despite working extra hours to cope with the additional workload.

To add to the melee the Minehead Development Trust recently unveiled its own plans for a new tourist information centre in The Avenue.

That, in turn, led to Minehead town councillors lodging a formal complaint against the district council for keeping it in the dark about the development trust's plans, even though the district authority had asked the town council to work with it to find a solution to the lack of tourism provision in the town.

The latter appeared to have angered the district council's lead member for economic regeneration and tourism, Cllr David Sanders.

At Wednesday's meeting, he launched an attack on the town councillors involved in the complaint claiming they had had ample time to democratically agree a way forward but had singularly failed to do so.

Cllr Sanders, who is married to Minehead Town Council clerk Sue Sanders, said: "Since 2011, West Somerset Council has welcomed inquiries about the seafront building and tourism in the area.

"We have always maintained an open door approach."

He accused some town councillors of acting "beyond their remit" and said that despite meeting a town council working group in December, he still had no idea what the town council's official view was.

"I left that meeting not knowing what Minehead Town Council wanted.

"They have had since that meeting to take this before a full council and to reach a democratic view.

"They have failed to do so. We still only have the personal views of one or two town councillors," Cllr Sanders said.

However, town councillors did discuss the issue and voted to try and take control of the closed tourist information centre from the district council when they met at the end of last month.

That hope has now been scuppered by the council's decision not to simply transfer ownership of the building, but Cllr Kravis said she was hopeful a solution could be found before the main tourist summer season.

She maintained the cabinet's decision was about showing people what could and could not be done with the building, rather than stopping people getting involved.

But Cllr Martin Dewdney said he was "staggered" district councillors were only now discussing the nitty-gritty of the values, covenants and potential ownership of the building.

Both the market value of the building and the likelihood of having to pay back European grant funding were only investigated by the district council last Thursday.

"We took the decision last spring and closed the building in October and yet no-one has done anything about it until now?

"We don't even have an asset to transfer. We owe more money on it that it is worth so there is no asset.

"We should have been looking at this last year," Cllr Dewdney said.

Council leader Cllr Tim Taylor said the council had yet to receive any bids from anyone willing to take on the visitor information centre.

He said he remained hopefully additional grant funding would be forthcoming to ensure tourism information services could continue to be provided in Minehead.

"We would welcome bids for the visitor information centre from anywhere," he said.