Total of £36,000 awarded to Adur community groups

A total of 15 groups applied for the latest round of Adur Community Grants with a funding pot of nearly £36,000 available.

The funding scheme has been running for 16 years and during this time more than £835,000 has been awarded for 245 different projects.

Five groups were successful this year including Brighton & Hove Albion FC’s official charity, Albion In The Community; CYCALL, a group dedicated to making cycling accessible; and Vida Active Club CIC which runs exercise classes for the over 60s.

But this year Adur District Council received requests for funding totalling £82,000 – something the local authority attributes to the impact of the pandemic on the non-profit sector.

This means ten groups have had their funding bids turned down including two local football clubs, a community tree planting group, and an organisation which works with women at risk of sexual exploitation.

A report by the council’s interim director for communities says the pandemic has ‘hit the local third sector hard’.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the local third sector hard; the impact taking its toll on two key areas – their resources (staff, volunteers and theways in which they can now work) and their financial income,” they said, “All at a time when the experience, expertise and services of not-for-profit organisations are needed more than ever to support our most vulnerable residents to re-emerge and recover from the pandemic.”