THE Government is to be pushed to help come up with a plan to re-route and reopen the B3191 road from Watchet through Blue Anchor to Carhampton.

West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger plans to put Ministers under renewed pressure to start formulating a long-term solution to the unstable cliff problems which forced the road to be closed at Cleeve Hill, just outside Watchet.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said the impact of the road closure was being keenly felt in Watchet this summer despite a £30,000 financial aid package given by Somerset Council.

He said when Parliament returned from its summer recess he would start making fresh approaches to Government about re-routing the road.

The B3191 was closed early this year when cliff falls led engineers to declare it unsafe, warning it could collapse onto the beach at any moment.

The closure dealt Watchet a harsh economic blow, isolating it from caravan sites in Warren Bay and Blue Anchor which previously provided valuable summer income for local shops.

The bill for moving the road to a new inland line has been put at anything from £30 to £60 million. But Mr Liddell-Grainger said the idea of re-routing the road should not be written off merely on the grounds of cost.

He said: “We have to assess all the benefits re-opening the road would bring, not merely in terms of trade for Watchet but in providing once more an alternative route in and out of furthest West Somerset on those frequent occasions when the A39 is closed because of an accident.

“Once you start to calculate the colossal economic impact of having thousands of journeys disrupted and delayed, possibly by hours, the economic case for shifting the B3191 to a new line starts to stack up.

“Somerset Council and all the other agencies involved now need to start constructing a solid business case for the retention of the B3191 in order that we can make a concerted and well-argued approach to Government for the funds to be found.”