Council able to 'play ball' as Atherstone life-savers given financial lifeline for community support work in Covid crisis

COUNCILLORS CHOOSE FIRST RESPONDERS AND EDIBLE LINKS FOOD BANK CHARITY FROM £2,000 OF DISCRETIONARY GRANTS

A PLEA to find a way to give financial assistance to a volunteer medical team who helped save a steward's life at the Atherstone Ball Game has been answered.

North Warwickshire First Responders are to receive £2,000 in discretionary grants for its "sterling work" in supporting the community during the coronavirus crisis.

The work of the body was highlighted in its swift and crucial action in the critical treatment of stricken steward Martyn Kellegher-Burton which saw the this year's Shrovetide event abandoned after he was taken ill.

The medical support was first on the scene before paramedics arrived – attending to the 38-year-old inside the ball game headquarters at Atherstone Conservative Club when he suffered cardiac episodes an hour into the February 25 event. He was revived twice before airlifted to Coventry's Walsgrave Hospital.

In March, Atherstone North Councillor Ray Jarvis revealed the responders were so reliant on outside funding they "even have to fund a plaster they put on your finger".

He said the medical packs on their backs alone cost £2,000 as he asked the North Warwickshire Borough Council's Community and Environment Board what was the procedure to get on the 'approved' list of organisations benefitting from annual grants scheme.

The financial support to the group has been made possible through a North Warwickshire council fund which allocates £17,650 to each ward in the borough and allows councillors to personally decide where the monies should go.

Councillors Ray Jarvis and Mejar Singh representing Atherstone North ward and Councillors Denise and Tony Clews from Atherstone South, Mancetter and Ridge Lane ward have decided to donate the sum of £1,000 to each of two groups – the NW First Responders and charity Ediblelinks, which was formerly known as the North Warwickshire Food Bank, which is working "flat out" supporting the vulnerable throughout the whole of the borough in the Covid crisis.

Each group will receive £2,000.