ESSEX is to receive £3.8million of the 'holiday hunger' funding announced by the Government at the weekend.

The cash follows the row over the Government's decision not to provide free school meals in the October half term and the campaign against child hunger by footballer Marcus Rashford.

The news came at the same time as Essex County Council (ECC) announced nearly £1.5million extra of its own cash for food banks and its Holiday Hunger club, which provides food and activities for children during school holidays. That money has been allocated to help support families through to March 2021.

There will also be extra support from the ECC cash to extend holiday camp programmes through the Easter and summer holidays next year. New sites will be added across the county to help offer wider opportunities for working parents to sign up for free childcare activity camps, with the option to pay a small fee for an extended day offer.

Foodbanks will be able to provide and extra £14,000 worth of Christmas food parcels with the ECC money and there will be targeted extra support for 750 Essex young carers and more funds for the HomeStart project to help support families with young children in the county's most deprived areas.

Welcoming the government's extra support to local authorities, ECC's Cabinet Member for Children and Families, County Councillor Louise McKinlay, said: "This significant new government funding for such schemes is well timed.

"It will enable us to build on all that we have done to date and further extend the additional plans that we are putting in place today to support children, families and vulnerable people."