A SAILING club has been saved from closure thanks to a £90,000 grant.

Chapman Sands Sailing Club, on Canvey, is celebrating after Veolia North Thames Trust handed over the cash as part of £200,000 it is ploughing into the area.

The trust’s £89,465 grant will repair the club’s jetty and improve security there.

Commodore Peter Bishop said: “There are no words that can explain how grateful we are. If it wasn’t for the trust, we would have had to fold.

“We had people trying to buy the land, but the trust stepped in and secured funding that helped to extend our lease for another ten years. We really appreciate it and I want to thank them a million times over.”

The club’s jetty, which had been ruined by vandals and bad weather, will be rebuilt by the end of this month Altogether, Veolia has handed out more than £200,000 in grants across Castle Point.

It gave £127,000 to Essex County Council for the restoration project at Hadleigh Country Park.

The cash is part of a ten-year project to restore the park’s grasslands to create a home for the rare shrill carder bee.

Park manager Andrew Woodhouse said: “We are in year nine of the project and it is going exceptionally well.

“We think there are around seven nests on the site. With this money we hope to carry on our good work.”

The Trust also awarded £17,057 for refurbishments at St Anne’s Church, on Canvey.

Father Pete Mallinson said the money has been spent on new fire doors and a screen to divide the church and hall.

He said: “My pre-school is now fully taken up and my Cubs and Scouts have better and safer facilities and more people coming in. The trust has made the building part of the community and made it safe for the community, they have really made it useful.”

£13,123 is also being spent on a path for Canvey Lake. Canvey Town Council said it would be completed in a fortnight.

At its most recent meeting, the trust allocated almost half a million pounds for community projects across south east Essex after it received a record £3.3million from landfill operators Veolia.