THURROCK MP Jen Craft has launched a broadside against senior councillors on the borough's council, accusing them of using public funding to support 'vanity projects' – not for the the purpose for which it was intended.

Jen Craft spoke up after the council announced the launch of a new community fund as part of its 'Restore Civic Pride' ambition – an initiative much trumpeted by council leader Cllr Richard Bingley.

Last year Mrs Craft announced she had brokered government funding of £1.5m for Thurrock as part of a Labour initiative with up to £5bn of investment for 339 "overlooked" communities across the UK to spend on boosting high streets, parks and public spaces from a Pride in Place Impact Fund.

Now Mrs Craft fears the Reform-led Thurrock Council is using the cash to bolster its political image and divest some of the money for unknown purposes rather than make use of the money as intended and she is concerned how money will be spent and managed.

She says she wants to know what is going to happen to the £1.25 million the council appears to be hanging on to.

The council says its new community fund will put power in the hands of local people to make positive changes in their neighbourhoods.

It has allocated £250,000, saying the fund: "Gives residents, community groups and small businesses the opportunity to help improve public spaces, create or improve community facilities, and rejuvenate high streets and town centres.

"The Pride in Place community fund will award grants of between £1,000 and £25,000 to help improve public spaces, create or improve community facilities and help to rejuvenate high streets and town centres. Local ward councillors will be asked to lend their support to bids."

Cllr Milena Bingley, cabinet member and portfolio holder for Education, Skills and Children's Services, who earlier this week helped launch a new skills hub in Tilbury, said: "The people who know best how to improve local areas and create or enhance community spaces are the people who live there.

"They see the things that need to be improved every time they set foot out of their front door.

"This fund will help them turn those ideas into reality and create facilities and improvements that will serve communities for many years to come.

"If you have an idea, you are passionate about that will improve the place where you live and help to restore civic pride in your community we want to hear from you.

"Thurrock is a place we should be proud to live and raise our families in. This funding puts the power in the hands of the people who know best what changes, both small or large, will improve the neighbourhoods and community spaces we all use every day."

Mrs Craft believes Reform, and Mrs Bingley's council leader husband Richard, are stretching the fund's purpose to make themselves look good, saying: "While this small grant scheme seems positive on the face of it, I want to know where the remaining £1.25 million of this funding that I secured is going.

"I worked hard to deliver this Pride in Place money for people in Thurrock, to make a real difference in our communities, with residents deciding how it will be spent.

"I am deeply worried by reports that it will be absorbed into business as usual for the council, or the leader's vanity projects.

"All this money was allocated for people in Thurrock for them to decide how it is spent and what it will deliver, not for political leaders to use at their whim."

To find out more about the Pride in Place Impact Fund, and how residents, community groups and local organisations can apply for funding to put their ideas into action visit: Pride in Place: Investing in the places that matter most to local people | Pride in Place | Thurrock Council.