A REGENERATION project in Porlock has secured funding from West Somerset Council to build a website to raise awareness, despite the initial bid being rejected.

The Porlock Bay Shellfish Project is a trial scheme to see if it is possible for shellfish to be grown in Porlock Bay near Porlock Weir.

The scheme will receive £800 to put towards building a website that will promote the project.

The money is from the Community Impact Mitigation fund (CIM) given to West Somerset Council by EDF Energy which is to be made available to communities that will be most affected by work on Hinkley C.

West Somerset Council has been allocated £2 million.

The project originally applied for the funding in early November but was refused in the grounds that there was no "clear, identifiable impact" from the Hinkley C site preparation works.

However, the council recommended that the Hinkley C Obligations Board – the group who offer advice on what projects should receive funding – to reconsider the application.

Roger Hall, a member of Porlock Futures, the group behind the Porlock Bay Shellfish Project, which asked for money towards the website, said: "We feel that the traffic on the A39 which will be created by the works for Hinkley C will put people off continuing down the road to get to Porlock.

"We emphasised this in the second application.

"We feel that a website letting people know about the project in the bay will persuade people to make the journey to come to Porlock."

Roger, who has experience in IT, will be working with Porlock based First Design Print Web to get the website up and running by the end of February.

The trial project, which started in Spring 2014 and ends in March 2015, aims to create jobs in the future by producing the shellfish commercially.

"To date, the trial is progressing very successfully.

"There have been some setbacks such as the seagulls eating all the mussels when they were exposed at low tide but we will try a different technique in 2015.

"But the oysters, which are the most valuable, are doing extremely well.

"The tests to determine if they are fit for human consumption are giving the best results we could get."