More millennium cash

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The Millennium Fund, which has already launched three new programmes in the past six months (You and Your Community awards, Encore and ReDiscover), is asking beneficiaries of its capital awards to apply for more funding. The Millennium Fund stopped receiving new lottery income midway through 2001, as it began winding down its operations in preparation for closure by 2006. But it has found itself with more cash left over than it had planned for – and may shortly hear that it will receive another windfall from the disposal receipts of the Millennium Dome.

Fund officials will not give any estimates of how much unallocated cash they have to distribute. But in mid-October the Commission wrote to all 198 of its funded capital projects, asking them to consider any enhancements to their projects which they might like to apply to have funded. As several of the MC’s capital grants were umbrella awards, they estimate that 3,000-odd sites are eligible for the top-up funding. Nina Baxter at the Millennium Fund, said: ‘This is not for funding gaps or for projects in trouble. It is about building on success.’ Groundwork UK was one of the MC’s umbrella grant recipients, coordinating a £22m programme on behalf of 21 organi-sations transforming post-industrial wasteland into community environmental assets. Peter Morgan, Groundwork’s national programmes manager, said: ‘I’m still deciding whether to apply and if so, what for. It’s up to the individual projects to come back to us with ideas.’ There are no application forms and no detailed guidance: potential applicants are being advised to have an informal chat with the Millennium Commission’s director of projects, Bill Alexander. Applications, in writing, need to be lodged with the commission by 23 February 2003, and decisions will be made by May 2003.