BIG breathes £5 million of Lottery life into local green spaces

Area:

Wales

Programme:

Breathing Places

Release date:

12 11 2007

Wellies and spades are at the ready as BIG join forces with the BBC to make  £5 million worth of green grants available for the BBC-led Breathing Places campaign. The grant scheme is all about local people creating local spaces for themselves and for wildlife. From back gardens to city parks, wasteland to woodland, communities are changing the places where they live and getting closer to nature.

Tonight on BBC2, the hugely popular Autumnwatch announces this Big Lottery funding – encouraging people right across the country to go for these easy access funds and get involved with wildlife in whatever way they choose.

As a presenter of well-known TV programmes such as Iolo’s Welsh Safari on BBC Wales and S4C’s Crwydro, there’s nobody more passionate about wildlife and the environment than Iolo Williams. He enjoys nothing more than donning his walking shoes and binoculars to prepare himself for tackling whatever the elements, rugged landscape and wildlife of Wales can throw at him.

Urging people in Wales to apply for funding, Iolo Williams said: "Plant a tree, make homes for birds, bats or bugs…this amazing new funding from the Big Lottery Fund is now up for grabs, and there is so much we can all do. Your local patch, playground, park or allotments could become a nature reserve for the wildlife in your area with help from the Big Lottery Fund, so apply today!"

Green-fingered transformations have flourished throughout the UK following the previous Breathing Places funding with a whopping £5 million dispensed to 656 groups allowing them to cultivate a diverse range of environmental projects. This third round is set to be more popular than ever with the next batch of Lottery grants destined to create a whole new raft of breathing places

Huw Vaughan Thomas, Big Lottery Fund Wales Country Chair, said: ‘’This initiative has captured people’s attention the width and breadth of Wales, and its popularity is set to rise as the impact of Lottery funding is being felt across so many communities. Breathing Places are relatively small-scale projects led by local groups – many being helped by the Lottery for the first time.

“Grass roots groups across Wales can now look forward to focusing community efforts on making a real difference to their local area”

One Welsh project which has benefited from the funding is the Woodlands Community Primary School in Cwmbran, Gwent. The project will be officially launched this week (Tuesday 13 November) and the school is one of three projects in the County of Torfaen to benefit from the programme. Their award of nearly £10,000 has been spent on transforming a waterlogged and disused piece of land near the school into a green oasis that the school and the whole community can enjoy.

More information about Breathing Places can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces and a full list of grants awarded through this programme are available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Further information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office in Wales- Oswyn Hughes: 02920 678 207
Out of hours contact: 07760 171 431
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102 030
Textphone:  0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

• The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £20 billion has now been raised and more than 280,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.

BBC Breathing Places

BBC Breathing Places is a four-year campaign to inspire people to connect with nature. Developed in partnership with a huge range of wildlife and conservation organisations, the campaign encourages new audiences to get involved in doing one thing for nature, while providing opportunities for BBC Breathing Places to be created across the UK.

A Breathing Place is great for both wildlife and people. It has an active community of people creating, enjoying and maintaining it.

Breathing Places Cities – Launched this year, 15 cities across the UK are becoming more wildlife friendly. In a Year of Action, thousands of people are promising to ‘Do one thing for nature’ – from putting up a bird box to joining a conservation group. For full details and information about each individual venue check the web site www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces

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