A WAR of words has broken out over a £96,000 grant awarded to the West Somerset Railway Association (WSRA) from a fund set up to mitigate the impacts of Hinkley Point C new nuclear power station.

MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has called into question how the grant money has been spent since it was awarded in October 2018 and is asking for answers to a series of questions.

And the head of Stogumber and Crowcombe First School, Julie Norman, is also expressing her disquiet over how the grant funding is being spent – she and her husband Andy were instrumental in writing and submitting the bid to the Hinkley Point C fund.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said he was seeking an urgent meeting with the West Somerset Railway (WSR) chairman Jonathan Jones-Pratt after receiving reports that the money had not been spent in accordance with the successful bid.

Mrs Norman’s open letter to Mr Jones-Pratt says she and her husband worked for a year on the HPC funding bid as part of a wider, multi-agency drive to improve opportunities for young people in West Somerset.

In her letter she asks the WSR – which she describes as a valued part of West Somerset’s heritage and economy – to work more closely with the community, especially young people, and to support the efforts being made to increase life chances for them.

In response, the WSRA ‘s acting chairman, Mike Sherwood, said the organisation, rather than the WSR, was responsible for administering the HPC grant and had submitted detailed accounts on how the money had been spent during the first year of funding.

The WSR said the programme was continuing for a second year – and that lessons had been learned. A community engagement officer had been appointed in January 2019 as part of the first stage of the grant.

It was “untrue” that HPC money had been used by the WSR for other purposes and WSR and WSRA audit trails would substantiate that.

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