LEWES council leaders are to make further funding available to help residents facing cost of living pressures.

On Thursday (July 7), Lewes District Council’s cabinet agreed to put a further £250,000 towards measures intended to support those worst hit by rising costs. The funding comes on top of the £500,000 cost of living reserve set aside by the council earlier this year.

Of the new funding, £50,000 is to be awarded directly to local foodbanks, while the remaining money will pay for both a grants programme to be distributed this autumn and a new officer to administer it.

In a statement released after the meeting, council leader Zoe Nicholson (Green) said:  “As living costs spiral, our local foodbanks are running very short of food at a time when people desperately need their assistance, so it’s crucial we give this financial support right away.  

“We are keenly aware of the real challenges people are facing – especially those with the lowest incomes — and although the council cannot resolve all the problems being experienced, for some time we have been working to help alleviate hardship for those who are worst off.  

“The Cost of Living Crisis Fund builds on those steps while tackling the urgent needs of local foodbanks, alongside a wider programme of support to deal with fuel and food poverty which will unfortunately only worsen as the year rolls on.”  

While the funding was agreed, the decision saw some concerns raised by Conservative group leader Isabelle Linington, around what she described as a ‘lack of detail’ in the proposals.

She said: “Of course we want to help people, but it is ‘how is the best way to do it?’ You have already got the first £500,000, but we’ve had no detail about how you are going to spend it. And yet here we are putting another £200,000 in, again with not a lot of detail. 

“I think it would have been nice if you had somehow sorted out how you were going to spend the first amount of money before you suddenly put a second lot in.

“It is all very well making grand gestures and saying the government isn’t doing enough and we need to do stuff, but it is how we are going to do it and make sure it gets to the right people.”

Cllr Linington also questioned whether it was necessary to employ an additional council officer to administer the new grants programme, rather than using existing staff who have experience of similar schemes.

The Conservative leader’s comments saw some criticism from cabinet members, who argued the additional funding was intended to reflect the urgency of local need.

The council’s deputy leader James MacCleary (Lib Dem) said: “The reality here is that this is an emergency response to an emergency situation. We know that ultimately we need long term support and structural change here because this is actually a crisis on a scale when the numbers become almost meaningless because they are so large.

“We are standing up and saying, ‘we are going to do what we can with the resources we have’. But this is a district council and this is actually quite a significant commitment.

“We are seeing, certainly where I live in Newhaven, people in crisis situations that are so extreme now that it is offensive — in this country, in the modern world — that we are seeing people put into these situations.”   

Cabinet members also said details of the initial £500,000 were expected to come forward in September. It was said this would follow on from discussions, involving all the council’s political parties, about how it should be distributed.