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The voice of Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector

Published by Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

TFN is published by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh, EH3 6BB. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registration number SC003558.

Lottery accused of “disempowering” Scots community

This news post is over 6 years old
 

Community believes funder is deliberately wanting it to fail

Scotland’s biggest funder is disempowering a Scots community, a leading body has claimed.

As exclusively revealed by TFN this week, Linwood Community Development Trust (LCDT) had a £1 million lottery bid rejected – a move it now says was designed to disadvantage the town.

The trust told TFN it believes lottery bosses rejected its application to “point score” against Renfrewshire Council, which has already backed the £3m Mossedge Village Project with £1.2m of funding.

And now the Development Trust Association Scotland (DTAS) has hit out saying the decision to reject Linwood’s bid has grave implications for similar projects around the country.

Ian Cooke, director of DTAS, said that the Big Lottery Fund’s decision would have repercussions.

He said: “While recognising that the demand for Big Lottery funding exceeds the money available for funding, the decision of the Big Lottery not to fund the Linwood project raises wider implications for community empowerment and community-led development (both national policies) in Scotland.”

Cooke added: “DTAS has long supported the view that the community ownership of assets can be an empowering activity for communities. But it seems the amount of time, effort and money which LCDT have had to expend in reaching this point of rejection, is more dis-empowering than empowering."

Campaigners have now vowed the project will go ahead without lottery cash.

Jeannette Anderson of the trust said: “It really is beginning to look like the lottery isn’t sure at all, as to why they turned down our application.

“We have obtained a copy of the lottery assessment report which showed the Trust scoring “good” across all sections.

“It is beginning to look like that the lottery used Linwood to make a point to Renfrewshire Council.

“We will not allow anyone to use the trust or Linwood in this way.”

Cash would create an urban village including a community hall and an all-weather football pitch with changing facilities, a theatre and a community growing area.

But after a four-year process and over £200,000 spent on the bid, the group slammed the lottery for rejecting the application.

Kirsty Flannigan, the trust manager, said that representatives from Renfrewshire Council, the Scottish Government and LCDT will be meeting to discuss another option for the proposed Mossedge centre.

“The trust is determined to deliver on our plans for Mossedge 3G park, the nurseries and our other activities. We got a real boost on Wednesday with the confirmation of £220,000 from the Scottish Government to invest in the Woodland nursery.

"The trust and Linwood know what we are doing. We will leave it up to other people to make their own assessment of the Lottery.”

A spokeswoman for the Big Lottery Fund said: “Our committee judged that, with two other facilities close by, a new third community building did not offer value for money and they also had concerns for the ongoing sustainability of the project.”

A Renfrewshire Council spokesman added: “The funding would have been the final component needed for the project, which included £300,000 from the council and a further £800,000 which the council had applied for from the Scottish Government’s Regeneration Capital Grant Fund, on behalf of LCDT."

 

Comments

0 0
Ron Carthy
over 6 years ago
LCDT seem to believe that they have a right to Lottery funding. Many of us have put a lot of effort into funding applications many times only to have them rejected. Sometimes we can understand why an application was rejected in favour of others other times we cannot and feel bitterly disappointed. But I think most of us recognize that there are too many worthwhile projects chasing too little available funding and don't adopt a "victim" mentality.
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