PLANS for a countywide £250,000 fighting fund to help businesses hit by the foot and mouth crisis have been thwarted in favour of a proposal some believe could pump up to £10 million into local coffers.

Conservatives on Somerset County Council had called for a quarter of a million pounds immediately to be made available from the authority's revenue balances to offer financial aid to businesses.

But members of the council's ruling Liberal Democrat group over-ruled the plan at Wednesday's meeting of the full council, voting instead to ask the executive committee to come up with "a strategic rural recovery plan" and "to identify resources".

Liberal Democrat leader of the council Humphrey Temperley said he hoped work on the action plan would start within the next fortnight and eventually bring in between £5 and £10 million in aid to the county.

He said: "It is clear that a quarter of a million pounds countywide is a gross under-estimate of the money we think is needed.

"The Exmoor problem alone is going to cost between £3 and £4 million at this stage, let alone if things don't recover soon."

But after the meeting, Conservative group leader Cllr Alan Ham, who had put forward the idea of a £250,000 fighting fund, told the Free Press he was "absolutely disgusted and horrified" by the decision to hold more discussions rather than offering immediate help.

He said members of the county council's Labour group had stuck with Conservatives and abstained in the vote on the amendment in a show of support for the fighting fund proposal.

Cllr Ham said: "Our motion was practical and contained suggestions which were worth pursuing as a starting point. Their amendment didn't offer any solutions at all - it only involved more discussions with Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

"At the end of the day, it's not what business want. They want practical help.

"This is just another example of how the county council lacks vision and lacks the ability to act responsibly."

Cllr Ham's motion had also called for members to vote in favour of deferring all rent payments for the council's tenant farmers for six months, to ask the Government to extend the current three month business rate relief scheme and to ask officers to investigate ways of promoting Somerset as a holiday destination.

The Lib Dem amendment agreed to call for an extension to the rate relief scheme and to work with district councils to promote the county as a tourist destination.

However, help would only be offered to tenant farmers on a case-by-case basis and there were further calls for the Government to make money available to anyone who had been affected by the crisis.

Councillors also praised the actions already undertaken by district councils and Exmoor National Park Authority and thanked their own staff for their "enormous efforts".

But the main thrust of the amendment centred on the formation of a "strategic rural recovery plan", which would be drawn up in consultation with district councils, the park authority, the rural development agency, Countryside Agency, Somerset Economic Partnership and the Small Business Service.

The amendment stated: "This plan would aim to re-build the damaged sectors and the rural Somerset committee be asked to set this work in train as a matter of urgency."

But Cllr Ham said that at no stage during the meeting did those proposing the amendment mention any sums of money to ensure the "damaged sectors" could be re-built.

Cllr Temperley said that was intentional as councillors did not know how big the problem was going to be.

"In my view, we are only a quarter of the way through this crisis. Saying here's £250,000 would mean around 50p per member of the population in the county.

"Alan thought he had a good idea, but at the end of the day the amendment was carried by 32 votes to nil," Cllr Temperley said.

He also doubted the legality of setting up a fighting fund - as already done by West Somerset District Council - and said the county was not prepared to put money into a scheme with "a doubtful legal basis".

He believed it was better to wait until all the facts were known on the effects of the crisis and appealed for business hit by the outbreak to e-mail him at [email protected]">[email protected] with their facts and figures.

But Cllr Ham remained defiant: "The package of measures we were calling for would have assisted those hardest hit.

"Somerset depends heavily on agriculture, its related businesses and tourism. The loss of business runs in many millions of pounds and jobs are seriously at risk."

He praised West Somerset District Council for its quick response to the crisis in setting up its own fighting fund to offer interest-free loans. The fund now stands at £100,000.

"We think that what West Somerset District Council has done is fantastic. They were quick off the mark and all credit is to be heaped on them," Cllr Ham said.

Businesses in West Somerset and the rest of the county will now have to wait until the next meeting of the council's executive board at the beginning of May before talks begin on how to formulate the recovery plan.