THE Westcountry designer of potentially the world's largest-ever green energy project is willing to give away his concept following a row over funding.

A tidal "reef", the brainchild of Cornishman Rupert Armstrong-Evans, is one of a handful of schemes being considered by the Government for the Severn estuary, which has enough power locked within its tides to generate 5 per cent of the UK's energy needs.

But Mr Armstrong-Evans, who came up with the idea while in the bath, has become so exasperated with difficulties in accessing a £500,000 funding pot to develop the scheme that he is now willing to hand over the concept to the Government, making it a publicly owned asset.

Mr Armstrong-Evans said: "The 'reef' project is my baby and I would rather give it away on condition that it is developed properly for everyone's benefit, rather than hijacked by the big boys, who will just look at the bottom line."

His "reef", which he believes has the capacity to generate as much renewable power as any other scheme, is the only Severn energy proposition to have secured the full backing of the environmental lobby, and has been given the thumbs-up by engineering experts Atkins.

In January, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband announced a shortlist of five advanced schemes that had met the Government's criteria, including a controversial 10-mile concrete barrage from Cardiff to Weston-super-Mare.

Yet £500,000 was ring-fenced to further develop "cutting edge ... yet unproven technology", including the "reef".

Mr Armstrong-Evans, who established what is thought to be Britain's first renewable energy company near Launceston in 1973, fears that the 12-month window to get the reef to proof of concept stage is already small without the project being delayed by bureaucracy.

He says the South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA), the Government-funded economic outpost charged with delivering the funding, is hung-up on time-consuming seminars and workshops instead of ensuring it reaches the researchers and engineers working on new green energy plans.

Mr Armstrong-Evans, who added that, despite attempts, contact with the agency has been minimal, said: "SWRDA appears to be having a great difficulty coming up with a project format that fits within their framework. So much so that I am now offering the reef directly to the Government so that it can be funded as a government consultancy and the intellectual property going to the nation."

His firm, Evans Engineering, based at Trebullett, near Launceston, has been involved in scores of renewable energy projects – primarily in the hydro-electric field – both in Britain and abroad.

The Cornishman's idea is popular because his design started by considering the "crown jewels", factors most likely to prevent a tidal scheme from getting the go-ahead. Most acutely, this includes the possible loss of thousands of hectares of natural habitat, the impact on fish and the costly time delays to ships travelling into Bristol port.

The reef idea exploits the Severn's massive 45ft tidal range, the difference between its low and high tides – and one of the biggest in the world – in a different way to other energy schemes. Put simply, it only uses a small difference in water level, and so generates less power but over a much longer period, causing less damage to wildlife.

A large number of simple, low-head turbines would be placed along the twelve-mile width of the Severn from near Minehead, Somerset, to Aberthaw, Wales.

The sticking point appears to be SWRDA's insistence that any public money granted is match-funded by the private sector. It says this is the same with any other research-and-development funding scheme.

But Mr Armstrong-Evans, who works with small team from a tiny shed in the North Cornwall countryside, and has developed the idea to date through credit cards and a re-mortgaging, is determined not to dilute the project by bringing in a cash-rich private utility.

He insists the £200,000 he needs could go directly to the academics who would carry out the "raw" environmental, tidal and economic modelling. Experts at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and Exeter University are among those he would like to bring in.

Mr Armstrong-Evans insists the grant would be a fraction of the public money lavished on proving the barrage concept since it was first proposed as a source of electricity in the 1910s.

He said: "Later stages would almost certainly benefit from competing designs of components such as turbines, but it is the underlying concept that is novel and SWRDA appears to have missed this, and are proposing instead to invite applications from companies such as Rolls Royce, to design hardware before the concept is refined."

Claire Gibson, director of sustainable resources at SWRDA, said it was working with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Welsh Assembly government to get the £500,000 scheme up and running.

It is understood the terms of reference will be announced in the next week, and is likely to underline the necessity for match-funding.

She added: "I hope in the next few weeks Rupert will have the chance to discuss the eligibility criteria with us and other interested stakeholders in the fund."

Of the issue of the private sector offering match-funding, she said it was the "standard process with Government" and there were "all sorts of issues with state aid to be aware of".

She said: "Ultimately, we are looking at delivering a very large scheme that's going to be expensive and we feel there really should be some commercial interest shown now if we're going to be looking at somebody, not in a long time, to take forward such a scheme.

"Rupert is of the view he cannot generate that private sector funding himself, and is therefore putting forward a proposal that the Government takes it on.

"This has only recently come in to us, and we haven't had time to discuss that yet. But I certainly will explore that further with DECC.

"But whether the outcome of the discussions is what Rupert will be looking for, I'm not sure."

The wildlife charity Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which has described the Cardiff-Weston barrage as an "environmental monster", supports the reef.

Its regional policy officer, Mark Robins, said: "The overall goal of this must be to get the best options on the table for the next stage of the feasibility study.

"If funding is going to be a blocker, that needs to be more flexible. Government needs to keep its eye on the prize.

"Ed Miliband (Energy and Climate Change Secretary) has said we don't need the barrage-scale construction for the contribution to the 2020 renewable targets. In other words, we have time to get the best options."