Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has awarded over £43,000 to communities across its South East region to support them in their ongoing response to the coronavirus crisis.
21 communities across the region, including Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, will benefit from awards totalling £43,880 through SSEN’s Resilient Communities Fund (RCF), which was repurposed in March to support local efforts in helping those most vulnerable during the pandemic.
Successful applicants from community, parish, town and borough councils have now been awarded up to £3,000 each from the £175,000 available through the RCF to provide food and materials to vulnerable community members, enable volunteers to support community coronavirus initiatives, provide PPE to vulnerable and frontline workers, run community befriending schemes and improve community communication.
Freshwater Parish Council has established the West Wight Coronavirus Support Hub, a collective community response with 332 volunteers supporting people in the West Wight of the Isle of Wight. In addition to a phone line run by the volunteers 6 days a week that enables local residents to request help, the Hub is delivering prescriptions and essential food supplies to those who are self-isolating and is now using the skills of further volunteers to make scrubs for workers at local care homes. They have been awarded £3,000.
Meanwhile, Niton & Whitwell Parish Council has been awarded £2,000 for food and materials.
Ian Drummond, SSEN’s Head of Region for South East said:
“It’s heartening to see how quickly the communities across our local region have worked together to support those in need of assistance during this challenging time and I’m delighted to see these awards from SSEN’s repurposed Resilient Communities Fund benefitting them and all of their efforts.
“Our customers and communities are at the heart of all we do and, in addition to this funding, we continue to work to keep the power flowing to homes, businesses and sites critical to the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
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Since its launch in 2015, SSEN’s Resilient Communities Fund has now provided over £2.7 million to 538 local community projects to build resilience and protect those most vulnerable. The criteria for this year’s fund was changed following consultation with SSEN stakeholder groups, who strongly supported opening the fund early and targeting coronavirus response.
The full list of recipients for SSEN’s South East region are:
| Award recipient | Area | Funding to provide | Amount awarded |
| Churt Parish Council | Surrey | Hardship Support | £1,200 |
| Cliddesden Parish Council | Hampshire | Enabling Volunteers | £3,000 |
| Fareham Borough Council | Hampshire | Food and Materials | £3,000 |
| Farncombe Day Centre | Surrey | Food and Materials | £504.96 |
| Freshwater Parish Council | Isle of Wight | Enabling Volunteers | £3,000 |
| Godalming Town Council | Surrey | Hardship Support | £3,000 |
| Gosport Borough Council | Hampshire | Food and Materials | £3,000 |
| Haslemere Community Council | Surrey | Food and Materials | £3,000 |
| Haslemere Town Council | Surrey | Food and Materials | £1,300 |
| Havant Parish Council | Hampshire | Enabling Volunteers | £2,225 |
| HIVE Portsmouth | Hampshire | Food and Materials | £2,000 |
| Middleton-on-Sea Parish Council | West Sussex | Hardship Support | £1,825 |
| Midhurst Town Council | West Sussex | Food and Materials | £2,000 |
| Milland Parish Council | West Sussex | Communications | £900 |
| Newnham Parish Council | Hampshire | PPE | £2,000 |
| Niton and Whitewell Parish Council | Isle of Wight | Food and Materials | £2,000 |
| Overton Parish Council | Hampshire | Enabling Volunteers | £1,236 |
| Petworth Town Council | West Sussex | Enabling Volunteers | £2,000 |
| Singleton and Charlton Parish Council | West Sussex | Food and Materials | £1,090 |
| The Vine Centre | Hampshire | Food and Materials | £3,000 |
| Yateley Town Council | Hampshire | Enabling Volunteers | £2,600 |
clearly SSEN have been charging too much for our electric, if they have money to burn. They need to cut the bills of hard pressed households, instead of charging us extra just to give it away as charity money – we were not consulted on whether we wanted to pay towards this.
cut the bills, so we are only paying for electric and not charities.