THE Environment Agency has been congratulated by West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger for its speedy response to fears of a flood emergency in Minehead.

Contractors have completed a £3.7 million scheme to stabilise nearly 400 yards of beach fronting the town’s golf club, where erosion had been accelerating in recent years.

The scheme should help protect hundreds of homes as well as Butlin’s holiday resort, which is vital to the local economy.

Thousands of tonnes of boulders were transported to the site by barge and manoeuvred into position to provide a new defensive barrier in an area where the coast has retreated by dozens of yards.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said he was delighted the project, which was started in the autumn, had been completed so rapidly.

He said: “Normally, schemes such as this can take many long months, if not years, to work up and deliver.

“But in this instance the Environment Agency recognised the urgency of the situation and acted accordingly.

“And everybody living in the lower-lying areas of Minehead should be mightily relieved that it has pulled out all the stops to keep them safe.

“Every part of the West Somerset coastline is becoming more and more vulnerable as sea levels rise and the weather becomes more extreme.

“But this work should keep the sea at bay well into the future.”