MORE than £7million of the recovery money from central government has already been spent, initial figures show.

Figures obtained by the Journal show that £7,338,974 of the funds have already been spent, or have been pledged, towards the city’s recovery to date, with a further half a million in the pipeline.

The government pledged £2.5million in support of the local community in March, immediately after the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the city.

And in July Prime Minister Theresa May announced a further £5million to support businesses, boost tourism and meed unexpected costs as a result of the two incidents in Salisbury and Amesbury, taking the total to more than £7.5million.

The current spend includes £733,381 towards supporting businesses hit by unexpected closure and drop in footfall after the major incident.

The figure represents £404,024 in revenue grants for 74 businesses, £99,891 in capital grants via the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership for 30 businesses and business rate relief totalling £229,446 for 56 businesses.

Wiltshire Council said it would not release details of which businesses had benefitted from the funds.

To boost tourism, £210,491 was spent on events to encourage visitors, including the OVO cycling event and smaller projects such as the Royal wedding party in The Close, Les Colombes exhibition of Doves, Salisbury Literary Festival and Salisbury Live.

£500,000 from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was also allocated to tourism company Visit Wiltshire.

The company has not confirmed how much of this will be spent hiring a firm of consultants to rebrand the city, but an initial budget was set at £60,000.

Almost £4,000 was spent on the recovery and dry-cleaning or disposal of clothes believed to be contaminated by Novichok.

And more than £1million went towards keeping potentially contaminated sites safe, including barriers and security staff, deep cleaning costs and the cost of community meetings, radio adverts, posting internet updates and advertising.

Wiltshire Council spent £570,000 of the recovery money to cover the costs of free parking and park and ride services after each major incident, as well as contributing more than £1milion from its own reserves.

The spend also included £4.1million pledged by the Home Office to cover Wiltshire Police’s costs in responding to the nerve agent attack, bringing the total funding currently allocated to the force to £6.6million. The overall policing cost has now exceeded £10million, with commissioner Angus Macpherson hoping to recoup the full amount from central government.