A CHARITY which provides healthy lifestyle education to local school children has been awarded a grant of £900 by Wellington Town Council.

Life Education Wessex (LEW) – which has been running since 1993 – provides a health education programme at Rockwell Green Primary School for two days and four days at Wellesley Park Primary School.

The charity works across Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Hampshire providing programmes in schools that give children the skills and knowledge to make healthy choices in life including the adverse effects of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and psychoactive substances.

It had requested a grant of £1,650 from the town council but following discussion at its meeting on September 10 it was decided to give the group £900.

Cllr Andrew Govier, speaking at the council’s finance committee meeting, said: “This is a very good organisation and it was one of my charities of the year when I was Mayor of Taunton Deane.”

He said that even if the grant helped LEW to ‘make a difference’ at those two schools and prevented just one child from getting involved in drug and alcohol abuse then it would be money well spent.

But not everyone was entirely happy with the situation. Deputy Mayor Cllr Mark Lithgow said he was dismayed at finding that LEW had £218,000 in the bank as reserves. “I’m all in favour of life education and I don’t think we do enough of it,” he said. “But we are here to help the projects that struggle to fund themselves. LEW is a charity – not a savings account.”

Cllr Marcus Barr said that some groups and organisations thought the town council was a ‘soft touch’ when it came to awarding grants. “People do put these grant applications into us thinking we will give them the money,” he said. “The council is known for being a bit of a soft touch.” But he added: “If this money stops one person from doing drugs then it is a small price to pay.”

Cllr John Thorne said organisations like LEW were told to keep money in reserves and that they rely on large one-off grants that they would not get each year. “We do support this kind of work,” he added.

Cllr Vivienne Stock-Williams said LEW had been going a long time but wondered if it had any information to show how its work had made a positive impact on people over a protracted period of time.

The full council later rubber-stamped the finance committee’s recommendation to award LEW a grant of £900.