Efforts to deliver new walking and cycling links across Somerset have hit a bump in the road due to changes in a key grant funding organisation.

The Somerset Association of Local Councils (SALC) brings together town and parish councils across the county, and provides a number of grants every year aimed at boosting community health and well-being.

Due to demand for the grant funding from projects earlier in the calendar year, SALC has announced that its grants for future projects this year will be capped at £10,000, rather than the usual upper limit of £35,000.

SALC has said it is still willing to work with local active travel groups, such as the Strawberry Line Society and the Taunton Area Cycling Campaign (TACC) to help deliver projects, though it could not provide significant capital funding for any such venture.

Fodo Higginson, SALC's community health and well-being officer, explained the situation at a virtual meeting of Somerset Council's cross-local community network (LCN) active travel steering group on June 18.

She said: "What we had leading up to early-April was grants leading all the way up to £35,000.

"Fortunately for us, lots of people applied for money, so there's a limited amount left in the pot.

"What's being decided is that the cap on grants is now going to be £10,000 – although it's all a bit malleable and pliable. We do tweak things at the edges.

"We don't fund solely big capital projects – which doesn't mean we wouldn't fund a project that was primarily led by volunteers and might need certain resources.

"If you came to us and said: 'we want to put in this path which will link the Strawberry Line to somewhere else', I think the answer would be 'no'.

"But if you said you wanted to work with some volunteers on some stretches of path to make sure they remain closed, or you wanted to scope out the idea of a new path and replace some stiles with gates, then we can have a conversation."

Mick Fletcher, chairman of the Strawberry Line Society, questioned whether ongoing work on a new section of car-free paths in Cheddar would still be eligible under the revised scope of the grant funding scheme.

He said: "We have almost finished installing a path around the boundary of Kings Academy in Cheddar – and because it's a school it's got to have high security fencing.

"We're interested in working with the school to get the pupils to do something to decorate the fence as an art project – pupils from that school and the feeder schools.

"We could engage a professional artist, as we've done in north Somerset, to lead the community project. Is that the sort of thing you might look at?"

Ms Higginson replied: "One hundred per cent, as long as it comes through from your parish council, or a group of parish councils.

"The entire programme is really about engaging and supporting parish councils to do more in terms of their role within any form of community health and well-being. That sounds like a great project."