WELLINGTON Choral Society has been congratulated on providing facilities for the wider community in the town.

The society won the backing of Wellington Town Council, which awarded it a grant for £1,547 to buy new lighting, at the council’s latest meeting.

The society is the oldest choir in Wellington being founded in 1940, and aims to present sacred and secular works, and to support other musical and charitable activities.

Members of the council’s finance committee were told that it awarded the group a grant of £2,997 in November 2017 to buy staging.

Councillors were told that both the staging and planned new lighting would be made available for other groups to use.

Cllr John Thorne said: “This is another brilliant organisation in the town with a very good reputation. It is admirable that they loan out the staging and will be doing the same with the lighting, so we would be helping other organisations in the town and not just the choral society with this grant.”

Cllr Thorne also had a message for people who complain about there being nothing to do or nothing going on in Wellington.

“There are a lot of good organisations in Wellington,” he said. “We hear people run down the town and say there isn’t a lot going on but I think there are lots of good things going on in our town.”

Cllr Marcus Barr said without hesitation that the full grant should be approved.

Councillors were told that the society, which boasts a membership of about 80 people of all ages, was putting just over £400 of its own funds into the lighting project.

The finance committee supported the grant application and this was later confirmed by the full council.