RESIDENTS are delighted after a £19.5million project to stop homes slipping into the sea at Lyme Regis was given the green light.

The Environment Agency has confirmed it is supporting phase four of West Dorset District Council’s coastal protection scheme at East Cliff.

The project will safeguard about 244 homes and 900 metres of Charmouth Road and Church Street which would have been destroyed by erosion over the next 50 years.

It will involve the construction of about 390 metres of sea wall and major slope stabilisation involving heavy piling and deep drainage.

Preliminary work is due to start in the autumn before the main work is carried out in 2013 and 2014 The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will provide grant aid to cover the coast protection elements of the scheme.

County and district councils will also contribute towards the cost. Derek Hallett and Susanne Whitemore, who have lost 46 feet of their garden in recent years, were overjoyed at the news.

Retired Mr Hallett, 70, of the East Cliff Residents Association, said: “We are absolutely delighted.

“We live on the edge of a cliff and only have 24 feet of our garden left.

“District council staff have worked extremely hard to get this.

“Everybody in East Cliff Residents Association and Church Street are extremely pleased we have got it.”