WIREDGOV

Community life in ten areas of the country is about to benefit from a big makeover. Awards announced today by the BIG Lottery Fund – are putting good cause millions into village halls and community hubs.

Towns from Yorkshire to Cornwall have secured a slice of the Lottery funding totalling £2,659,018, enabling communities to give their village halls a new lease of life or build new community centres.

The funding is from the Big Lottery Fund’s £50 million Community Buildings scheme. Sanjay Dighe, Big Lottery Fund England Chair, said: “Community Buildings is a fantastic programme that aims to fund buildings which are a focus for neighbourhood activity. These projects awarded funding today epitomise the aims of the scheme, all promising to give a huge amount back to their local communities.

“It’s great news that BIG is able to help transform their halls or build new modern, sustainable places for everyone to use and enjoy.”

Ten projects will today receive grants totalling £2,659,018. Amongst the successful projects today is the ‘Samuel Lithgow Capital Project’ which has secured funding worth £495,000 to provide a refurbished community hall for all those living on the Regent’s Park Estate in Camden in North London. The cash will be used to create a new sports hall and community café. There are also plans to introduce an ICT suite and a sound studio for musical activities.

Paulo Pires, Centre Manager at the Samuel Lithgow Youth Centre, said: ”This grant will allow us to finally refurbish and extend the community centre, making our dreams a reality. New community-based services will be delivered from the modernised Samuel Lithgow Centre that will benefit local children, parents, young people and the wider community for years to come.”

In rural Suffolk, a village with no pub, shop or community building will benefit from today’s payout. The Bruisyard Parish Council has received £187,218 from the fund to put towards the building of a brand new village hall.

“Bruisyard has been without a village hall or any other public meeting place for over 30 years,” said Peter Robinson, Chairman of Bruisyard Parish Council. “We used to have a meeting place which was known as the ‘Iron Room’, a Victorian Sunday School building of corrugated iron construction.

“It had no electricity, water or toilets, but is very fondly remembered by the older residents as the social heart of the community. Local dances were held, village events were celebrated and many couples met and held their wedding receptions there!

“Unfortunately the cost of repairing this building and for providing even the basic services such as electricity and water were prohibitively high for the village to find in the late 1960s and it had to be demolished after becoming structurally unsafe. But now the funding from the Big Lottery Fund will help us to recreate a very important community facility lost so many years ago.”

In North Warwickshire the ex-mining villages of New Arley and Old Arley have been given fresh hope for the future after being awarded £396,500 to build a much-needed community centre.

“Fantastic news,” said Reverend Peter Allan, project spokesperson. “Since the mines shut down the community has faced a lot of disappointment. So the news that we’ve won funding for this new centre will not only make a huge practical difference to the people around here but also boost the morale of the entire community. We’re very proud of our past – and this new centre will mean that we can be positive about the future as well.

“An area of wasteland behind St Michael’s church in New Arley will be transformed into a community centre that will house an activity hall, a coffee lounge, fully accessible toilets and a full-size kitchen. It will become a place where people from New Arley and Old Arley can gather, learn and share experiences – something the community is really lacking at the moment.”

For the lists of all ten awards from today’s announcement click here.

Further information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102 030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• Community Buildings is dedicated to investing in buildings that give communities a chance to improve their quality of life and meet local needs, by offering a range of activities and services open to a broad range of people.
• £50 million will be distributed across England over three years with grants of £50,000 to £500,000 available.
• The programme opened for applications in June 2006. 200 applicants were invited to submit stage 2 applications and development funding was awarded to some projects.
• The programme is now closed for applications.
• The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £20 billion has now been raised and more than 280,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.