Clwyd West Assembly Member Darren Millar has welcomed the fact that community groups in his constituency have received a huge slice of funding from the National Lottery in the past five months.

The Big Lottery Fund has announced that its latest grants funding for the Clwyd West constituency since February 2017 totalled  763,367.

Groups that benefitted included Denbighshire Farm Women's Club, which received 2,170 to fund a day trip to Halen Mon, Pringels, and Pant Du Vineyard; Merched y Wawr Cangen Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd, which received 1,371 to take their members on a boat trip in Llangollen, Clwb Cemig, in Conwy, which received 850 to organise a series of educational talks on topics of health and fitness as well as a trip to take part in health promotion activities;  Rhos Methodist Playgroup, which received 1,500 to provide hand washing facilities for the children, and Creating Enterprise C.I.C, which received 238,045 for its Stepping Stones project, which will create an employment academy to reduce isolation and improve the employability of social housing tenants. The grant, over four years, will fund three posts and project running costs.

Darren said:

“I am always pleased to hear of groups in my constituency benefitting from Lottery Funding and in this last round they have done particularly well with the money benefitting a diverse range of groups.  

“These groups do fantastic work in our local communities, often relying on volunteer help and the generosity of locals, so it is great when they are offered a helping hand.

“The Big Lottery Fund will shortly be relaunching its small and large grants programme with a focus on people-led community projects and I am urging any groups that fit the bill to apply.

“Awards for All will be increasing the maximum grants size to 10,000, with a quicker application process of 3 months and a widened scope of community, health, educational and environmental projects that we’ll be able to fund, and People & Places will be offering grants of between 10,001 and 500,000, and focusing on spreading funds across the lengths and breadth of Wales through simple and quicker applications of between 3 and 8 months (down from 12 months).”

For further information on how to apply visit: https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/