THE owners of the Blue Anchor Hotel say they “don’t know what to do” after plans for flood defences to stop their pub falling into the sea were abandoned.

The Blue Anchor Hotel sits on the cliff edge, and Simon and Cara Strom were working with West Somerset Council on a bid to the Environment Agency (EA) to pay to protect the coastline from weather and sea erosion.

But the council has changed its mind due to “considerable financial risks” which could “prove to be unaffordable”.

Around £600,000 was needed for the scheme, the bulk of which was to come from the EA.

Councillors agreed that £25,000 would be set aside from reserves for the bid, while the county council promised £125,000 in cash and materials, and Old Cleeve Parish council set aside £150.

The Stroms were prepared to invest £50,000 of their own money in the flood defence scheme.

Cara said: “The last we heard was that we were likely to get the funding at a meeting here – then I got a letter telling me it wouldn’t be possible.

“We’re now stuck with a property we can’t sell or invest in for the future.

“We’re paying a mortgage on a place which won’t be here much longer and council tax which isn’t helping us. It’s dead money.”

The Stroms have watched the cliff edge creep closer and closer to the pub (see pictures above) in the past eight years, and a climbing frame in the garden is now dangerously close to the edge.

Simon said: “We’re taking that down because we’ve been told if it does fall off the cliff edge we’re liable. “We’re going to have to wait for it all to fall away bit by bit.

"We don’t know what to do now.”

The council hoped to start work before April 1, 2015, but says it could not have met the deadline.

Cllr Anthony Trollope-Bellew, lead member for the environment, said: “We’ve been faced with an impossible combination of circumstances – extraordinarily tight deadlines and substantial financial risks.

“We’ve worked incredibly hard to try to come up with a bid for funding, but with deep regret we have to take the very difficult decision to withdraw from the process.

“I hope to meet Simon and Cara Strom personally to explain.”

West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger said: “It’s utterly ridiculous that this council is prepared to allow a perfectly sound business to fall into the sea.

“One good storm with the wind in the wrong direction could see the hotel pass the point of no return.

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

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