THE Local Joint Committee for the Bishops Castle, Clun and Chirbury areas is to press on with its work despite the scrapping of its funding for community grant awards by Shropshire Council.

Charlotte Barnes, who represents Bishops Castle on Shropshire Council, believes the committees, that were set up to devolve some decision making and spending away from County Hall to local communities, still have a role to play.

"Since they were set up in 2009 Local Joint Committees have done sterling work in bringing parish councils and Shropshire Council together to discuss key issues,” she said.

“We have also been able to summon public bodies such as the ambulance service and the police to talk about their service to our communities.

"Just as important was the committee's function in awarding grants to clubs and societies working on projects in our area. "Crucially over the last few years these grants have provided match funding to bring in £2 million from big funders such as the lottery. This is a big cash boost to an area like ours."

Nigel Hartin, councillor for Clun, said the loss of the local grant pot is going to have an impact.

"The removal of the grant pot by Shropshire Council will be felt keenly across the county,” said Coun Hartin.

“However the committee felt strongly that we must work hard to make up this deficit by finding other sources of income to fund our community grant scheme.

"To this end, my fellow councillors and I will be approaching a number of charitable grant awarding bodies over the next few weeks. The committee's grant awarding role is much too valuable a resource to lose."