Coalfields still await their Lottery bonanza

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The latest official figures confirm stark disparities in funding and slow progress in correcting them. Jane Taylor reports

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The UK’s former coalfield areas are still falling far short of the national average for Lottery awards, according to figures released by the Department of Media, Culture and Sport in November. A progress report on coalfield communities’ receipts of Lottery awards shows that their share has risen from 45% of the GB average per head in 1998 to 60% today, despite recommendations from an independent academic study group in 1999 and the setting up of a government-led action group to implement them. 

The same analysis also reveals, however, the extent of other geographical inequalities in funding distribution, with coastal and market towns faring marginally worse than coalfield areas at 59.5% of the average per capita award. Mixed urban and rural areas also stand out in many of the statistics as doing very poorly.

The DCMS report was launched at a review conference, held in South Normanton and attended by Tessa Jowell, DCMS Secretary of State. This review comes on the eve of the announcement –expected by mid-December – of which 50 areas across the UK are to be the beneficiaries of the £150m joint Community Fund

/ NOF Fair Share programme being launched next April. The shape of Fair Share is becoming clearer. It now seems likely that NOF will press ahead with an endowment-type scheme in all 50 areas. NOF’s £50m will be held centrally in order to generate more interest; local grants will be highly targeted, probably through Community Foundations; and the capital sum will over time be used up. The Community Fund intends to use its £100m contribution for capacity-building and ‘early quick win’ projects, according to its new chief executive Richard Buxton.

It is also apparent that the CF will not try to replicate its much praised ‘Brass for Barnsley’ approach within Fair Share. CF insiders point instead to other priority area initiatives in Doncaster, Rotherham and Barking & Dagenham as more likely models. Despite the CF’s intensive local work in some coalfield areas, it has barely increased its per capita allocation of funding – up from 65.3% to 67.75% of average.

By far the worst performer, however is the Arts Council of England, whose figures declined from 28.4% of average in 1998 to 23.9% today.

Tony Gore, the senior academic at Sheffield Hallam University who led the original coalfields research, said: ‘Some of the figures in the DCMS report show encouraging signs of things moving in the right direction. But there is still a long way to go, and I don’t think that was adequately reflected in the report.’