Council splits £30,000 grant over two years for Lakenheath church project

A project which ‘celebrates, supports and empowers fathers to be their best for their children’ is to receive £30,000 funding from a council but spread over two years and not one as originally proposed.

In December, members of Forest Heath District Council had deferred their decision on making a grant through their Community Chest initiative to the Lakenheath-based Abundant Life Church for its EPIC Dads project.

Cllr Robin Millar, the council’s portfolio holder for families and communities, had declared an interest in the item.

The grant allocation was delegated to council leader Cllr James Waters and Cllr Stephen Edwards, portfolio holder for resources and finance.

In a report published yesterday they recommended the church receive £15,000 in 2018/19 and a further £15,000 in 2019/20 ‘subject to satisfactory monitoring reports’.

A single grant of £30,000 would have been the highest single amount allocated to any of the nine projects which had applied for grants. The Lakenheath project has already received £24,491 from the same funding pot in 2017/18.

Ten organisations were not considered appropriate for Community Chest funding including St Nicholas Hospice Care in Newmarket and Mildenhall.