§ Mr. Ioan Evansasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now make a further announcement about the allocation of funds the European Economic Community have offered for the alleviation of damage caused by last winter's bad weather.
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§ Mr. ShoreI announced on 22nd March that our own special financial assistance to those local authorities which were faced with an undue burden of costs as a result of last winter's exceptional weather would be supplemented by an allocation of a proportion of the extra funds made available by the EEC. My Department has invited all the affected local authorities to submit claims, and enough information has now been obtained to enable a broad allocation of the EEC money to be made.
Of the total of about £630,000 offered for England and Wales, the Government have decided that about £440,000 should be made available to local authorities. As I announced in March, the money will be given to those authorities which have demonstrated their need by incurring exceptional expenditure beyond the product of a 1p rate, and will be distributed according to the severity of the burden remaining to be borne by local ratepayers. That distribution will be made when all the affected authorities have submitted their detailed claims.—[Vol. 946, c. 562–3.]