AROUND 650 victims of the Boxing Day floods have each been given £500, new figures show.

It comes as the Government revealed Bury Council has been given almost £1.5 million to help those who suffered during Storm Eva.

Bury Council has said 500 residents — mostly living in Radcliffe and Ramsbottom — have been, or will shortly be given the payments, along with 150 businesses.

Everyone who applied for the grants has been accepted for the cash after council inspectors went to assess the damage at their properties.

A total of £325,000 of the £1,495.514 available has so far been allocated and some of the remaining cash will go towards giving affected properties a council tax break.

In comparison to the grant to Bury, Bolton received £384,377, prompting complaints from Bolton South East MP Yasmin Qureshi that it is not enough.

However, there have been no such complaints about the Bury amount.

A Bury Council spokesman said: "(The money) is to pay for the three things.

"Firstly, to support residents, with the £500 payments and council-tax relief.

"Secondly, to support to businesses, with business rates relief and thirdly, for individual property protection, with aids and adaptations that should help make properties more resilient to flooding in the future."

Ms Qureshi asked a question in Parliament about the funding last week.

In response, ministers said local authorities are responsible for how the money is distributed, with the overall total being calculated in terms of the number of households flooded in each area.

Salford received £1,981,754 — the highest grant in Greater Manchester — and Rochdale received £1,403,164, while Wigan got £178,009, Oldham got £29,910 and Manchester got £29,290.

The council is set to hold a public meeting to hear from people affected by the floods and consider how the response could be fine tuned should there be a similar flood in future.

Bury Council's chief executive, Cllr Mike Owen, had hoped to stage the meeting before the end of January, but no date has been fixed as yet.