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Community centre and bird sanctuary get Lottery cash
A BIRD sanctuary in South Yorkshire and a community help centre in Grimsby have been chosen as the best in their field in a competition for Lottery-funded projects, earning both a £2,000 prize for their work.
The RSPB reserve at Old Moor, in the Dearne Valley, was named best environment project, and the Harbour Place Day Centre in Grimsby as best voluntary/charity project at the 2009 National Lottery Awards ceremony in London on Saturday night, presented by Nick Knowles and Myleene Klass.
The Grimsby centre provides meals, training, medical advice and employment and housing counselling for people with problems such as homelessness, low incomes, addiction, disability or unemployment.
Its future had already been secured following a decision by the Big Lottery Fund earlier this year to fund 60 per cent of its running costs for the next five years.
The Old Moor Nature Reserve was created as part of a regeneration of brownfield sites from the coal business, connected to the old Manvers Main mine, within easy reach of Barnsley, Rotherham, Sheffield and Doncaster.
It was officially opened in 2004 and pulled in 100,000 visitors over 2009 – twice the target set.
Heritage Lottery Fund bosses have pumped more than 1.4m into the reserve, paying for a new visitor centre and an education project.
Adults with learning disabilities and teenagers who are not in education or employment help with the upkeep of the reserve, and say visitor numbers have rocketed since the work was completed.
The seven categories in the National Lottery Awards reflect the allocation of Lottery funding. There were 10 semi-finalists in each category and three from each 10 were chosen for a final play-off by public vote, encouraged by regional TV and newspapers, in early August. The RSPB called on its members to vote for Old Moor.
Other winners were the Jennifer Trust's Spinal Muscular Atrophy Outreach Service, Stratford-upon-Avon (health); Restoration of Stourport-on-Severn Canal Basins (heritage); Tower Hamlets Summer University (education); Community Sports Pavilion at Beragh, Northern Ireland (sport); and Sefton Performing Arts and Creative Education Centre, Liverpool
More video: Watch a Yorkshire Post film on the Dearne Valley nature reserve
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