TENDRING Council will receive almost £1.5 million from the Government to help plug gaps in its finances caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

With the council missing out on car park, leisure, and theatre incomes, with additional pressure on its services, the council is expecting the outbreak to put a strain on its finances.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced another £1.6 billion would be given to councils across the country to help them deal with the crisis.

Tendring Council will receive £1.47 million, in addition to £89,097 confirmed in an earlier announcement.

Carlo Guglielmi, deputy leader of Tendring Council and portfolio holder for finance and corporate resources, confirmed the money was for the authority and not business grant cash.

He said: “This money will be used to support the myriad of services which we continue to deliver for our residents during this difficult time.

“Tendring Council has a massive range of services including waste collection, crematorium service, cutting the grass in parks and open areas, maintaining the seafront and other council owned properties and lands.

“But staff cost is the biggest cost the council has.

“With the leisure income being gone, we are trying to redeploy people elsewhere and we are looking at ways to maximise our workforce and not to furlough anyone.”

Mr Guglielmi said having to work from home, the council had to invest in IT to have the right systems to connect with the rest of the district.

“We’ve bought several new platforms, which cost us a lot,” he added.

“We have also developed new services including help lines and two community hubs which are responding to the needs of our most vulnerable residents as we continue to serve Tendring throughout the pandemic and beyond.

“We will continue to evaluate the financial impact to the council once the current situation has changed and returned to some kind of normality.

“We do welcome the money from the Government, it will very much plug the gap in short term, but it doesn’t mean once we start relaxing the measures everything will go back to normal.

“Our ten-year budget approach has successfully helped us to manage the additional costs and loss of income. We will continue to look at the impact to better understand the real cost we have incurred, with a view to making further representation to Government.”

Colchester Council will receive £1.95 million and Essex County Council £26.2 million.