A VARIETY of community groups in Okehampton will receive a cash boost shortly, after grants totalling more than £2,500 were this week given the green light.

Members of Okehampton Town Council?s policy committee have agreed the grants to Victim Support Devon, the Ockment Centre, Castle Bell, the Open Door Family Support Group, Okehampton Friendly Circle and the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Town clerk Don Bent told the committee that approximately £1,800 worth of grants had been approved to the end of November and that more than £4,000 remained in the budget for the current financial year.

Cllr Stan Stormont proposed that Victim Support, which is now covering a large area having merged with another district, should receive £100.

Cllr Stormont said anyone who read the papers or who has been unfortunate enough to have been affected by crime would know what a valuable role Victim Support played.

Cllr Christine Marsh, mayor of Okehampton, proposed Castle Bell should receive £500.

Cllr Marsh said: ?This is a group for people with mental disabilities which helps them get back into work again.?

The Open Door Family Group was awarded £195 to organise a series of ten art workshops and Okehampton Friendly Group was granted £250. The Citizens Advice Bureau was awarded £1,000.

Cllr Pat Snell said although Okehampton CAB was amalgamating with Tavistock as far as administration was concerned, there would still be an office in the town.

She suggested any grant to the CAB could be specifically spent on the Okehampton branch, for example, stipulating the money should be used for rent to the Ockment Centre.

Applications for grant funding by Dartmoor Railway, OCRA, the Westcountry Rivers Trust and the Margaret Jackson Centre were rejected by the committee.

Members agreed Dartmoor Railway was a commercial concern but directed the clerk to investigate other funding avenues which may be possible.

The committee said OCRA had already been awarded a grant within the current financial year; the Rivers Trust was refused on grounds that Okehampton had its own rivers group which the council would prefer to support and services carried out by Exeter?s Margaret Jackson Centre were also in operation locally.