PETERSFIELD Town Council has been forced to slash many of its grants to organisations in the town because of a drastic shortage of cash, councillors have been told.

Petersfield Town Council awards grants to local organisations under several headings.

Chairman of the councilÕs grants panel, Brian Dutton, told the finance and general purposes committee last week that there had only been £2,000 available for one category of grants after £5,500 was taken from the pot to help Petersfield Rugby Club players who were facing a crisis after losing the use of changing rooms in the Taro Centre.

ÒThere was only £2,000 available and we have spent it all,Ó Mr Dutton warned town councillors. ÒThere is nothing left to give when the second batch of applications comes in later this year.Ó

He said it had been a very difficult task deciding how to award the money.

ÒWe gave to the people who we thought were the most deserving,Ó he told the committee. ÒWe had to take out some very needy and worthwhile clients altogether, and in the end we came down for the youth of the town.Ó

Among the grants was a £700 grant to Sheet Scouts, who had faced a massive legal bill earlier this year when they renegotiated their Scout hut lease with the town council.

Town councillors were horrified when they discovered that Sheet Scouts had been forced to pay £752 in legal fees and invited the Scouts to apply for a grant to help pay the bill.

Members of the committee heard that it was the town councilÕs policy that tenants renegotiating leases paid their own as well as the councilÕs legal bills.

The grants panel could afford just £50 for the Drumjam Community Circle, which had asked for £1,500.

Grants were also given to East Hampshire Victim Support group and to the East Hampshire Counselling Service, although not as much as it had asked for, and the counselling service had only received around one third of its request.

Mr Dutton said the panel had been forced to turn down the KingÕs Arms grant request completely, although the town council had given major support to the group last year.

ÒPetersfield Cricket Club is in need of a great deal of money to help solve drainage problems, but they only got one tenth of what they asked for,Ó reported Mr Dutton.

He said First Petersfield Scouts also wanted money to repair their Scout hut roof.

Brian Keefe said the cricket club was facing an impossible situation with flooding at its Heath grounds.

ÒAlthough it has been dry this week, their game had already been cancelled early in the week because the pitch is unplayable. It is a very serious situation and clearly something has got to be done soon,Ó he told councillors.

The meeting was reminded that the council had earmarked developersÕ contributions to tackle drainage problems on the Heath.

Vaughan Clarke said he was concerned about the grant awards: ÒIt seems that a few people get a huge chunk and the smaller groups are virtually wiped out.Ó

Chairman of the committee George Watkinson told him: ÒGrants are very difficult things to recommend. But I think the panel has done a sterling job in balancing the small amount they had to award.Ó

Members of the finance and general purposes committee have recommended to the full council that the grants as drawn up by the panel should be awarded.

q In a bid to help small organisations pay their legal fees when renegotiating leases with the council, members agreed to review all leases every year to see when they expired. It could be possible to budget extra cash to help pay legal fees in a particular year, councillors said, if they agreed to help some needy groups.

But councillors said their general policy of asking tenants to pay legal costs would have to stand, although they agreed it would make it cheaper for groups if they could negotiate longer leases.