Destroyed documents at the heart of a grants controversy in NSW have been recovered.

The documents relate to the approval of hundreds of millions of dollars in local government grants under the state’s Stronger Communities Fund.

The grants were made in the lead-up to the 2019 state election. Over 95 per cent of the $252 million went to councils in Coalition-held seats, leading to accusation of ‘pork-barrelling’.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s office initially reported that key documents about the decision-making process had been destroyed, but was ordered to carry out a data search by the parliamentary inquiry examining the grants program.

The newly-recovered documents strongly suggest the Premier was directly involved in approving the expenditure.

“We've had the Premier all year ducking and weaving, trying to deny her role in approving these projects,” says Greens MP David Shoebridge, who is leading the parliamentary inquiry.

“We now have it in black and white that the Premier was approving project after project after project.

“From her office some $141 million dollars' worth of projects were approved — all to savour the political advantage of the Government of the day, all in response to requests from her Government MPs.

“It's about time the Premier was straight up and down with the people of NSW about this.”

The parliamentary inquiry had been told that $141.8 million of the Stronger Communities Fund was allocated by the Premier, $61.3 million was allocated by Deputy Premier John Barilaro and $48.9 million allocated by the Minister for Local Government.

“These documents have only been produced following a forensic document recovery process,” Mr Shoebridge said.

“The originals were deleted, both electronically and in paper, and they never would have seen the light of day if we hadn't been pressing the case in the upper house inquiry.”

The parliamentary inquiry will use its next session to officially scrutinise the documents.