COMMUNITY projects in Redditch have been awarded more than £200,000 in grant funding for the coming year by the borough council.

Support for bereaved children, independent debt advice from the Citizens Advice Bureau, youth film and media projects and the development of Redditch Play Council are among 19 projects that will benefit from Redditch Council's main grants scheme in 2014-15.

As in previous years, applications for funding were considered by the council’s Grants Panel under various categories with specific criteria. These ranged from a pot of £15,000 for bids of up to £3,000 for ‘community development’ projects up to a single grant of £80,000 to support ‘independent communities’.

The executive committee approved the grants panel’s list of successful bids at its meeting of March 14.

The council’s head of community services, Judith Willis, said: "The grant funding is designed to support important work in Redditch, as can be seen from the range of projects that have had funding awarded.

"We try hard to encourage local voluntary and community sector organisations to apply into the borough council’s grant schemes and so we were delighted to have received 36 applications this year, totalling £400,000."

Among the grants awarded was £9,990 to Sight Concern; £4,000 to Carers Careline; £40,000 to Redditch Play Council; £3,000 to British Asian Women's Group; £3,000 to Where Next; £2,480 for JestaMinute, a total of £8,000 for two projects at The Ditch, and £80,000 to Citizens Advice Bureau.