{"id":15291,"date":"2025-09-02T18:21:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T18:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/how-much-has-your-devon-county-councillor-spent-in-their-community-so-far\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T04:02:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T04:02:56","slug":"how-much-has-your-devon-county-councillor-spent-in-their-community-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/how-much-has-your-devon-county-councillor-spent-in-their-community-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"How much has your Devon county councillor spent in their community so far?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"money \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Click on the link below to find out how much your local county councillor has spent in their North Devon or Torridge ward. Credit: Adobe Stock<\/p>\n

The amounts North Devon and Torridge county councillors have spent from their individual grants budget to help their communities have been revealed following research by the Local democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).<\/p>\n

The data shows that only five of the 60 Devon county councillors elected in May have yet to start spending the \u00a38,000 locality budget they receive each year to help support local organisations and initiatives.<\/p>\n

None of those are in North Devon, where Braunton\u2019s Graham Bell and Barnstaple\u2019s Syed Jusef have already allocated more than \u00a35,000 each from their grants to local causes, while South Molton\u2019s Richard Hopley has spent just under \u00a35,000 and Andrea Davis for Combe Martin Rural just over \u00a34,000.<\/p>\n

Fremington\u2019s Frank Biederman has so allocated just over \u00a32,500, Barnstaple\u2019s Caroline Leaver just under that, Ilfracombe\u2019s Sara Wilson just over \u00a32,000 and Chulmleigh\u2019s Ed Tyldsley \u00a31,800.<\/p>\n

In Torridge, the big spenders are Torrington\u2019s Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, who has allocated more than \u00a35,600, followed by Bideford\u2019s Mark Barry who has spent \u00a33,800, Holsworthy\u2019s Lynne Rowsell just over \u00a32,000, Northam\u2019s Dermot McGeough \u00a32,000 exactly and Bideford\u2019s Robin Julian has spent \u00a3500.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Council calls on government to help pay for Devon\u2019s rural bus services<\/strong><\/p>\n

Across the entire council, councillors get a total of \u00a3480,000 to spend on community endeavours.<\/p>\n

So far since the current crop of councillors were elected in May, \u00a3153,000 has been either spent or pledged via 207 applications, some of which are still being assessed.<\/p>\n

Any unspent money does usually roll-over into the next financial year, however, around \u00a355,000 that was unspent by councillors last year is being redirected into two community pots.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the unspent locality budget cash doesn\u2019t transfer to new councillors following a local election.<\/p>\n

The only five yet to have spent according to DCC figures as of September 1 are Andrew Leadbetter, Heather Horner, Richard Jefferies, Stuart Rogers and Tony Dempster.<\/p>\n

The person who has spent the most is Cllr Debo Sellis, one of the administration\u2019s longest serving councillors, who has spent \u00a36,950.<\/p>\n

You can see exactly how much your county councillor has spent out of their locality budget by CLICKING HERE.<\/p>\n

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Click on the link below to find out how much your local county councillor has spent in their North Devon or Torridge ward. Credit: Adobe Stock
\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe amounts North Devon and Torridge county councillors have spent from their individual grants budget to help their communities have been revealed following research by the Local democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
\n The data shows that only five of the 60 Devon county councillors elected in May have yet to start spending the \u00a38,000 locality budget they receive each year to help support local organisations and initiatives.
\n None of those are in North Devon, where Braunton\u2019s Graham Bell and Barnstaple\u2019s Syed Jusef have already allocated more than \u00a35,000 each from their grants to local causes, while South Molton\u2019s Richard Hopley has spent just under \u00a35,000 and Andrea Davis for Combe Martin Rural just over \u00a34,000.
\n Fremington\u2019s Frank Biederman has so allocated just over \u00a32,500, Barnstaple\u2019..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15294,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15291\/revisions\/15294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skybeaconnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}