A GRANT of £2,500 is to be made to community group Tavistock Forward, after councillors this week overturned an officer's recommendation to give the group just £750.
Tavistock Forward originally applied for £3,200, to meet the cost of administrative support — economic and leisure development manager Tim Beavon said the group had secured funding for a variety of events such as the musical festival held in Tavistock this year, the hoppa bus project and the Tavistock Canal centenary celebrations.
But he said the group needed to find an independent way of meeting its costs and recommended awarding it £750 initially, up to a maximum of £1,500.
Cllr Alison Clish-Green was opposed to granting Tavistock Forward any more money.
'I am a little bit worried about this group,' she said. 'We should have a hands-off approach by now. I get the impression they could be coming back and asking for more funding — they are not democratically elected, so how accountable are they?
'I get the impression they spend a lot of time on feasibility studies rather than actually delivering.'
But Cllr Dick Eberlie proposed the council should award as much as it was able to give to Tavistock Forward.
Cllr Eberlie said: 'Tavistock Forward is one of the very few organisations that actually gets things done and I think we should be proud of them.
'I take the point that there will come a time when they need to stand on their own feet, but they have taken Tavistock by the scruff of the neck and got it moving.'
Cllr Margaret Garton backed Cllr Eberlie's proposal and paid tribute to the projects carried out by Tavistock Forward, saying some schemes had been 'bankrolled' by members while waiting for grant funding to come through.
'The things they are doing need to be run professionally and in order to do that, you need money,' said Cllr Garton.
Cllr Roger Mathew said he could only recall Tavistock Forward being involved in one feasibility study and said the group 'actually delivers' — in contrast to many other organisations.
'To represent them as an organisation which just fritters away money on feasibility studies is an absolute travesty of the truth — this organisation has done a very great deal for Tavistock,' he said.
The committee agreed Tavistock Forward should be granted £2,500, against receipts to be submitted quarterly and on condition of detailed costings to the council.