£90 million lottery boost for Northern Ireland

The Big Lottery Fund has announced that the people of Northern Ireland are set to benefit from £90 million of 'good cause cash' for local communities.

The fund today revealed plans to develop some new programmes with the launch of the Big Message document, which will give details of how lottery money will be spent up until 2009.

Lengthy research was carried out to find out how local communities wanted future grant programmes to be developed and the Big lottery Fund have been given the task to promote this through community learning, safety, cohesion and wellbeing.

These lottery schemes will give focus to future programmes which will be open for application from the general public and it will allow them to achieve their full potential, get involved in their local communities and boost physical and mental health.

It will also offer opportunities for older and younger people to learn together as well as supporting families to so the same.

The Big Lottery Fund will work in partnership to develop a strategic programme to promote healthier and safer communities and develop a one-off refurbishment programme to help improve the quality and use of community venues across Northern Ireland.

NI Director of the Big Lottery Fund, Walter Rader said: "We are making good progress in developing our future funding programmes. Our consultation on how we should fund has been an overwhelming success, with hundreds of people letting us know what they want from our funding.

"The messages coming across loud and clear are that people want our funding to be flexible and delivered in partnership, so that Northern Ireland people can achieve healthier lifestyles and improved green spaces through community led projects.

"Our priority over the coming months will be to develop grant programmes that focus on people, places and communities and I would urge people to start thinking now about how they can work with us in developing projects that can be funded."

(EF/SP)