WORK should start on a controversial new £520,000 link road in Porlock in just three months' time.

The road will be built from the top of Villes Lane through to Sparkhayes Lane, blocking off the current entrance to Villes Lane by breaking through into The Meadows.

It is part of a wider, inter-linked scheme which will provide 15 affordable homes in the village and see seven open-market homes built between Villes Lane and Sparkhayes Lane.

Although Exmoor National Park Authority gave permission for the road back in November, the route will be built by Somerset County Council and cabinet members gave the green light for the scheme when they met last week.

They were told the road would have to be self-financing, with money coming from a number of sources, including the sale of county council-owned land on which the open-market homes will be built.

Further cash will come from a long-standing legal agreement with Wessex Water and the sale of a county council-owned property known as Redgates.

But as previously reported in the Free Press, the project has divided opinion in the tight-knit community.

While the affordable housing has been welcomed, opponents to the new road and open-market homes fear the scheme could open the floodgates to large-scale development.

Hastoe Housing Association's 15 affordable homes, which will be built to the south of Healey's, were given permission on condition the road was built and can only be occupied once the road is completed.

In turn, the county council has maintained it can only afford to pay for the road by including open market housing in the proposals, which were contrary to the planning policies of the park authority.

However, the authority was able to make an exception to its planning rules, as there was local support for the scheme and it believed the benefit of new affordable housing justified a departure from policy.

Project officer Patrick Flaherty, the county council's head of physical regeneration, told the authority's cabinet members a conservative estimate of £175,000 had been put on Redgates and a further "minimum" of £300,000 on the land.

An additional £97,500 would come from Wessex Water as the new road would also improve access to the company's treatment works to the north of the village off Sparkhayes Lane.

In a report to the meeting Mr Flaherty said the total receipts would generate at least £572,000, while the road would cost around £500,000, including design, fees and construction costs, plus an additional £20,000 in surveys, legal fees and estate agents' commission.

He said: "Given the likelihood that the land and property will sell for more than the minimum amount and that the full contingency fund will not be utilised, it is, therefore, expected that the scheme will be fully self-funding.

"In the event of a funding shortfall, additional land sales in Porlock could be used the fund the shortfall."

He said it was scheduled to build the road in phases between April and August in order to minimise disruption during the Easter and summer holidays.

The council's open market housing land will be marketed before work starts on the road, while Redgates will be put on the market once the link road is under construction.