More than 2.4 million meals were snapped up in the county during the government's Eat Out To Help Out scheme last year, it has been revealed.

And that saved diners across Kent and Medway a combined total of more than £12.9million off their bills.

Announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak as a way of boosting the hospitality industry after the first lockdown, it ran throughout August and gave diners a discount of up to 50% off food and soft drinks at participating outlets up to a maximum of £10 per person per meal.

And it proved a huge success for restaurants, pubs and cafes which saw trade boom after months of forced closures.

The figures from HRMC, released this week, reveal Canterbury was the most popular place to take advantage of the deal with 173 outlets taking part and 324,000 meals served up at a discount. Each restaurant in the city claimed at average of £9,700 - an average saving per meal of £5.16.

Next was Thanet where 164 restaurants served up 278,000 meals with an average saving of £4.95.

Medway came next with 143 outlets serving 243,000 meals at an average of £4.85.

Across England, more than 50,500 restaurant took part, serving up over 90million meals and saving diners more than half a billion pounds. It cost the government an estimated £849m.

It came under fire, though, when the second wave of the pandemic arrived during the autumn with many suggesting it helped spread the virus.

However, the Treasury says research, commissioned by the Sun, proves it not to be the case and that areas in the country with the highest take-up had low infection rates between August and October.

A spokesman said: "These figures confirm that take-up of Eat Out to Help Out does not correlate with incidence of Covid regionally – and indeed where it does the relationship is negative.”

Elsewhere in Kent, Folkestone and Hythe saw 132 outlets take part and 203,000 served at a discount; Tunbridge Wells 131 outlets and 174,000 meals; Maidstone 118 outlets and 185,00 meals; while Ashford saw 103 participating hospitality providers serve up 193,000 meals.

Swale had 100 outlets and served up 196,000 meals on the scheme, while Dover had the same number of restaurants, pubs and cafes with 165,000 meals served.

Sevenoaks saw 92 outlets and 132,000 meals; with Tonbridge and Malling's 77 restaurants serving up 124,000 meals and the county's biggest average saving per meal of £6.90.

Gravesham's 59 participants served up 94,000 meals and neighbouring Dartford's 58 some 176,000 dishes.

The latest figures account for restaurants with less than 25 outlets nationwide - which accounted for 99% of all claims under the scheme.

In total, 84.3% of participating outlets were located in England, 8% in Scotland, 4.5% in Wales and 3% in Northern Ireland.

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