CASTLE Point Council has been slammed for not applying for a funding scheme that saw South Essex borough’s handed millions of pounds for regeneration projects.

Last week, the Echo reported how Southend Council received £15million and Basildon Council was handed £10 million from central government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund.

In Essex, £43.7 million in total was granted for housing projects, but Castle Point Council failed to apply for the funding, stating it did not have any suitable projects prepared.

Opposition leader Dave Blackwell slammed the council for not applying. He said: “They say they did not have projects ready. Well why not? We have had a regeneration officer for eight years now, but what is he doing?

“If you look at how much Southend has had over the last few years, they have had millions of pounds for the seafront. How can all these other boroughs seem to get endless streams of funding? This was a golden opportunity to get funding in and to get a project or two off the ground.”

Jay Blissett, town councillor for Canvey West, added: “I think it is bad they did not apply for it, we pay officers a lot of money to work for this area and you would think they would be up to the job. I’m very disappointed if they did not do that because Canvey’s roads are very old and we need that money.

“It would effect the whole of Castle Point in Benfleet and Hadleigh, the roads are effected but it is not noticed as much because people do not live on them like we do here.”

Peter Greig, independent councillor for Winter Gardens Ward, said: “I think it is extremely silly on their part if they didn’t apply for the funding.

“It is easy to turn round and say they didn’t have the projects in place to apply for the funding - but why didn’t they?”

David Marchant, council chief executive, said the funding was only available to schemes that were ready to go. He said: “Castle Point Council takes every opportunity to seek funding support for the community. Unfortunately we did not meet the criteria to submit a bid to the Housing Initiatives Fund. Given that Castle Point do not have any schemes that are ‘ready to go’ and that fitted the strict criteria to unlock housing schemes we did not bid and go through the two stage process which included submitting detailed business cases.”