MORE than £50,000 has been donated to good causes during the first year of a new community grants scheme.

Braintree Councillors’ Community Grants scheme launched in August 2016, and since then 74 community group have already benefitted from the funding.

In total, just over £53,000 has been distributed by councillors to dozens of different groups, providing funding for everything from classical music concerts to football club PA systems.

The scheme allows councillors the choice to distribute grant funding how they wish, using their knowledge of their community to see where it will be best used.

Each councillor has a maximum of £1,500 to spend and councillors are also free to pool their resources to joint fund projects together.

Graham Butland, leader of Braintree District Council, said: “I’m delighted this has been introduced so councillors can provide support to projects or activities that benefit the communities they represent.

“This way every ward in the district gets a fair share of community grants to help local projects and improve the wellbeing of communities across the district.

“Residents that have projects which need a boost to funding please contact your local ward councillor to discuss.”

Funding can be distributed for large scale projects such as the refurbishing of Braintree District Museum’s gallery, which received £4,400 during last years allocation.

But it can also be used for smaller scale projects such as providing new computers for Witham’s 2nd Boys Brigade group.

Earlier this year Feering Parish Council received £1,000 to go towards installing two life-saving defibrillators in the village, and chairman Paul Lees spoke very highly of the community grants.

He said: “Parish councils are often in a very difficult position because we are trying to maintain services and improve our community but without things like this it would be very very difficult.

“It is really important that things like this are there to allow us to improve the community.

“Our funding can only go so far and having grants like this allows us to do things like projects.

“The process was very straightforward and I think it works very well.

“At first I think people struggled a little with taking up the grants and it would have been easy for Braintree Council to have stopped them after the upkeep was low but they didn’t.”

Mr Lees is also a member of Kelvedon and Feering Cricket Club, that received a grant for £500, allowing them to install a disabled parking space at the clubs ground.

If you are interested in applying for a community grant you should speak to your ward councillor in the first instance who will be able to advise if they have funding left to allocate.

For more information visit http://bit.ly/2vwPbwd.

CHICKEN dominoes, morris dancers and portable football goals - just some of the items purchased using Braintree Council’s community grant funding.

Of the 74 projects to receive funding, perhaps the most unusual of the items purchased were three sets of chicken dominoes, a variation of the classic table game, bought by Sturmer and District Women’s Institute with £150 funding from the grant scheme.

The great British tradition of Morris dancing obviously doesn’t come cheap either, and Bocking Village Fayre Co-ordinating Group needed £300 to pay performers at the show.

The smallest grant, of £100, was given to Braintree, Halstead and Witham Citizens Advice Bureau, and went towards a new portable projector.

Sporting clubs were big beneficiaries of the grants with teams like Halstead Town Football Club, Gestingthorpe Cricket Club and Notley Green Carpet Bowls Club receiving funding for a PA system, a scoreboard and new carpets.