COUNTY councillors across Devon will no longer be able to support local causes through their allocated funding after a temporary suspension was announced.

Members had previously been able to donate £8,000 each from their ‘locality budget’ to charities and organisations within their ward area.

Across all councillors in Devon, the fund is worth £500,000 and is available to each elected member for the financial year from April to April.

But the county-wide funding has been ‘paused’ as a response to the authority facing an ‘unprecedented’ overspend which has prompted the decision.

Teignmouth Liberal Democrat county councillor David Cox said the suspension had been announced ‘with immediate effect’.

He said: ‘It has been announced no new applications for grants for the locality budget for 2022 to 2023 will be accepted.

‘The decision has been made with immediate effect so any new applications will not be approved.

‘Applications already submitted, but not paid, will still be honoured.

‘I am very sorry.’

Members were able to make grants to support projects and activities to benefit the communities they represent.

Devon County Council leader John Hart said: ‘We currently face an unprecedented overspend of £40 million in the current financial year caused by the cost of living crisis, rising demand for our services for vulnerable children and adults and potential wage settlements.

‘We are currently looking at our budget line by line to see where we can be more efficient and effective and where we can make savings.

‘We are serious about cutting expenditure and balancing this year’s budget and working towards setting a balanced budget for 2023/24 in six months.

‘The locality budget is worth around half a million pounds and cannot be exempt from scrutiny.

‘But this is a temporary suspension and we will honour payments that have already been approved.’

The ‘temporary suspension’ was announced on Friday August 5 until further notice.

It says this is to allow the county council to review its annual expenditure and ‘ensure financial stability’.