CHARITIES, organisations and events have benefitted fro thousands of pounds funding from Dawlish Town Council.

The largest grant of £5,000 was awarded to Assist Teignbridge which improves the lives of individuals across the district through community support services, including assistance claiming benefits entitlements, and paid for services including sitting and home care, home help, and nail trimming.

The charity, which was awarded the King’s Award for Voluntary Service, has been helping people in Dawlish, Teignmouth and surrounding areas for more than 20 years.

Members of the town council’s finance and general purposes committee were told that that in total the benefit checks that Assist Teignbridge had helped members of the public with had resulted in £550,000 being granted to individuals.

Of 432 enquiries made to the charity, 234 were from residents in the parish of Dawlish.

As well as the grant from the town council, the charity has also applied for other funding streams and has recently been successful with a grant application to the National Lottery.

Councillors agreed the town council should be supporting charities that benefit the community as much as possible.

Its staff and volunteers provide a range of paid and free community support services, catering to those facing mobility, frailty, or sensory challenges.

A grant of £1,000 was awarded to the Girl-guiding Dawlish and Starcross.

A spokesman for the guides said: ‘We are delighted to have received a generous grant of £1,000 from Dawlish Town Council towards our much needed replacement mess tent marquee, enabling us to update this essential part of our camping equipment.’

Councillors unanimously agreed that supporting young people in the parish and supporting such worthwhile and important organisations such as Dawlish Girl-guiding is exactly what the grant scheme is about.

The committee recognised the importance of supporting young people in the parish and the group hadn’t applied before but was a worthwhile and important cause in the community.

A grant of £2,000 was also granted to the Dark River Music Festival.

The one-day live music festival is a community event featuring local musicians hosted at venues throughout the town.

Councillors asked a representative from the festival about bands confirmed for next year’s event, plans for it to become self-funding and there were queries regarding the signatory process for payments.

Concerns were also raised about the admin costs, as the same amount was being asked from the council in grant funding as last year.

Councillors also asked about the income made from this years festival and any profit made from venues.

It was explained that the event put its costs low to make the event as cost effective as possible.

Members did also note that the event is very good for promoting and bringing trade into the town.

A small grant of £500 was also awarded to Dawlish Chamber of Trade.

Cllr Linda Petherick told the committee the application was for promotions for the town council’s Christmas event and the Chamber of Trade had worked very hard with the town council to help with the Christmas event.