Hertfordshire county councillors have granted £97,000 to community groups helping during the Covid-19 outbreak in less than three weeks.

The council’s ‘locality budget scheme’ allows every county councillor to directly support projects that promote  the social, economic or environmental well-being of their local area.

And this year the council took the decision to launch the 2020/21 scheme early – on March 20 – to enable applications from groups seeking to  respond to the impact of the outbreak.

Now it has emerged that within three weeks of that launch,  £97,000 had been allocated to community groups – specifically to support communities through the Covid-19 outbreak.

The data is included in a report on the council’s response to Covid-19, which is due to be discussed by the first meeting of the county coucil’s special cabinet meeting on Friday (April 17).

It states: “The Locality Budget Scheme for 2020/21 was opened early on 20 March 2020 to support communities to respond to the impacts caused by Covid-19.

“As of April 7, 2020, £97,000 had been allocated to local community groups for this purpose.”

As part of the ‘locality budget scheme’ each of the 78 county councillors can allocate £10,000 to local groups.

To be eligible to apply those local groups must be a limited company, a registered charity, an organisation with a recognised legal status or an unincorporated association with its own bank account.

Those organisations that are awarded a grant will be asked to keep receipts and invoices wand to supply a brief evaluation of their project.

In the first instance any group wishing to apply for funding should contact their local county councillor.