THIRTEEN organisations hoping for grants totalling more than £213,000 will be fighting for the £63,500 left in East Hampshire District CouncilÕs community initiatives fund this year.

At a meeting of the councilÕs cabinet on Wednesday of last week councillors heard that there were 11 applications outstanding and the amount requested totalled £203,000.

They included £25,000 bids from Bentley Community Association, Wield Village Hall, Beech Village Hall for hall improvements, a £25,000 application from Alton Methodist Church for building improvements, and two further £25,000 bids - one from Bentley Recreation Ground Charity for play equipment and another from Amery Hill School towards an artificial turf pitch.

Liphook Tennis Club wants £10,000 towards a new club hut and Headley Down Community Association has requested £9,000 for hall improvements.

At their meeting on Wednesday cabinet members were also faced with two further applications. The first was from Queen Elizabeth Country Park for £2,000 to create an enclosed area of play structures.

The second application was from the Third Alton Scout Group for £8,100 towards improvements to their headquarters.

Head of community Andy Ferrier told the meeting that until this year, applications for the fund, which was set up in the l999 to 2000 financial year, had been less than the budget allocation. As a result schemes had been judged on the criteria alone and they had not had to compete against each other for funds.

But there was only £63,531 left in the pot this year, said Mr Ferrier.

ÒApplications received and awaiting consideration by EHDC exceed this amount by approximately £162,000,Ó he said.

ÒThis position has arisen due to the fact that a number of applications have been received at the same time over the summer months,Ó Mr Ferrier told the meeting.

ÒIssuing of application packs has now been suspended for this financial year and town and parish councils have been advised of this position.Ó

Councillors decided to look at all the outstanding applications together at a cabinet meeting in January.

Due to the increasing popularity of the scheme Mr Ferrier also asked councillors to reduce the upper limit which could be given to applicants so that more schemes could be supported by the district council.

At present the councilÕs ceiling is £25,000, but members of cabinet lowered this to £15,000 after a proposition from deputy leader Sam James.

Councillors said £15,000 was still a sum big enough to ÒunlockÓ many other doors to funding, including matched funding from Hampshire County Council and Lottery bids.

They also decided to consider community initiative funds at three fixed points during the financial year so that comparisons could be made between schemes in relation to their community worth.

East Hampshire District Council requires that bids to the CIF should show local financial support in the form of grants or financial support from parish or town councils, donations from local organisations, companies or trust funds and fund- raising by local people.

And now cabinet members have decided the minimum local contributions should be percentage-linked to the amount of CIF funding expected from EHDC.

This is on a sliding scale where, for the first £5,000 asked for, EHDC expects 100 per cent matched funding locally. For the next £5,000 to £10,000 it would be 25 per cent of EHDCÕs contribution, and from £10,000 to £15,000 this is lowered to 15 per cent of the district councilÕs slice.

After a second proposal from Mr James councillors agreed that normally 50 per cent of the local contribution should be made by the local communityÕs town or parish council.

Peter Rodgers made a special plea for money to be set aside for projects in the south of the district when they came forward.

ÒThe problem we have in the south is we donÕt have the same number of organisations or parish councils, our numbers are severely restricted,Õ he told members of the cabinet.

But he said communities in the south were just as short of facilities as other areas in the district.

Councillors agreed it was unfortunate that more projects had not come forward in the south, but they said it would be unfair to deny grants to schemes in the north of the district by keeping a special fund in the event of schemes coming in from the south.