Almost £8,000 has been given out in grants to eight groups in Helston for community projects.

Helston Town Council gave the largest chunk, of £3,000, to Helston Bowling Club which asked for £15,000 towards its two-year project to make the building accessible to all, "to offer various activities at a reasonable charge."

Len Williams, from the club, said: "Hopefully it would provide access for all of Helston to enjoy a town centre venue."

While the total amount requested would have represented three quarters of the council's overall £20,000 grants budget - split over two funding meetings, in September and February - councillors agreed to give a fifth of it.

Members also heard from Helston Theatre Company, which had been looking at different ways to welcome reduced audiences safely to productions, but following the government ruling of no more than six people gathering chairman Paul Blaber and his colleague Gabrielle said that it was looking increasingly like the 2021 pantomime would have to be postponed until 2022.

However, members were currently considering different ideas of how to put on a production of some form - and in the meantime it was asking for £1,000 to help off-set the loss of ticket income, which it was granted.

The Fishermen’s Mission in Helston was given £1,000 after discovering there was no insulation in the roof of their new charity building in Coinagehall Street.

Shop manager Melinda King said that in a bid to save energy and avoid extensive heating during the winter months the money will be used to put insulation rolls in the loft in the large part of the building and cover the end office and sorting room in the extension.

Money will also go towards a storage shed for rubbish bags during the week, to prevent them being chewed by rats.

Helston Athletic Football Club was granted its requested £1,500 towards three items of ground maintenance equipment at a total cost of £1,768 – a chain-harrow, a finishing mower and a brush cutter.

Martine Knight, who is behind the Butterfly Wood project to support people's mental health, received £400.

She is developing a piece of woodland near Pemboa, on the outskirts of Helston, to honour her son David Hawke-Treneer, who took his own life in 2013 aged 37.

She said she had been approached by a number of schools and the Valued Lives mental health charity about using the site.

Mrs Knight added: "I'm passionate about it because the reasons behind it are very personal. If anything I can do to help stop just one person getting to that state of life that my son got to, where you want to end your own life, that would make it all worthwhile.

"I'm also passionate about young people and their mental health, because that's how the rest of their life is built."

2nd Helston Brownies was given £250, half its requested amount, to cover some of the shortfall of holding virtual sessions, which it is looking to continue a discounted rate.

Lizard CHILD Trust, which runs a day nursery in a hut on the site of St Michael’s School, received £710 to buy new waterproofs for the children and staff.

As parents are not allowed onto the school grounds because of infection control, staff have to go out in all weathers to receive children from their parents, and the nursery also has use of the primary school’s onsite wooded area, plus an all-weather garden.

An application from the Helston and Lizard fundraising committee of Marie Curie for £540, the equivalent of three nights’ care, was not given by the council this time.

The total amount granted this month was £7,860.