A council has secured an extra £1.7 million of funding to make it through the coronavirus crisis, after an initial grant of £57,000 ran out almost "straight away".

Maidstone Borough Council leader Martin Cox wrote to the government, revealing the authority's plans to spend £266,000 on measure to address the pandemic - almost five times the amount it had received so far.

Plus, the council expects to lose £7.4 million in income this year, due to the slower collection of council tax and business rates, plus the closure of services like the leisure centre.

Maidstone is joined by other Kent and Medway councils in pressing the government for more help. These councils estimate they will together spend an additional £126 million due to Covid-19, and also incur a loss of around £260 million.

In a letter to local government secretary Robert Jenrick, Mr Cox wrote: "I have to say that this vital contribution is in severe jeopardy because of the financial position in which we now find ourselves. Not only are we incurring additional expenditure, but the income on which we depend to fund our services is falling rapidly."

He added: "If you value the role of local government, it is essential that we receive significant more financial support than has hitherto been the case."

Councils across Kent and Medway initially received £46.3 million of the £1.6 billion emergency funding, of which £39 million was directed to Kent County Council, £6.6 million to Medway Unitary Council and an average of £59,000 to each of the 12 other districts.

"We mustn't hide and say we're all fine. This could happen again and we wouldn't have reserves"

Maidstone council spent its initial £57,000 on setting up Maidstone Community Hub and on staffing costs, including deploying people to other departments and overtime. Mr Cox says this money went "pretty much straight away".

But after the letter was sent last week, the authority has now been told it will receive an extra £1.7 million of funding.

Mr Cox said: "The government are starting to recognise the funding problems we will have and they've done this across the country. I'm sure it wasn't just my letter but I hope that showed them how all of us in this county are struggling, just as everyone else is.

"We wanted to make them very aware in black and white figures how we are spending the money, how we had a balanced budget, and how this is affecting it.

"We must be careful that we don't keep on spending our reserves as we must, as a district council, keep at least £2 million in reserve for an even bigger disaster, potentially."

Mr Cox highlighted that if "push came to shove" and funding ran too low, the council would have to resort to just offering statutory services, with leisure centres, museums, and street cleaning among the services ceasing to operate.

However, despite having received £1.7 million more, this is just a fifth of the amount the authority predicts it may need.

Mr Cox said: "We shouldn't just expect the money to land on our desks, and if they see this as a first tranche, that is helping considerably. We will not expect anything, we will ask for it and we will work with them. But we mustn't hide and say we're all fine. This could happen again and we wouldn't have reserves."

He added a plea for the community to work with the council and understand the council tax levy increase of 2% this month will be spent "prudently", highlighting the council only receives 16% of what people pay. The rest goes to Kent County Council and emergency services.

The council also says its Maidstone Cares crowdfunding appeal, to raise £10,000 for local charities, is completely separate to the rest of the funding.

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