Olympics threat to lottery good causes

3:35pm Wednesday 10th January 2007

HUNDREDS of vital community projects across the region face the axe to fund the soaring costs of the London Olympics, a Lottery chief has warned.

Sir Clive Booth, chairman of the Big Lottery Fund, fears "dark forces" in the Treasury are planning to raid his grants pot to help plug the £900m funding shortfall for the 2012 Games.

"I don't know how anybody could live with themselves, let alone Gordon Brown, if they were taking money off projects such as that to close an Olympic funding gap - it would be criminal."

Sir Clive Booth, chairman of the Big Lottery Fund

The move would have a "chronic and damaging effect" on the fund's programme to help the neediest groups in Britain, Sir Clive said.

Projects at risk include some which benefit disabled children, homeless youngsters and people who use community sports facilities and village halls.

Among the schemes currently funded is Shaidy Characters, in Derwentside, County Durham, which received a £125,120 grant exactly one year ago.

It offers training to homeless and other disadvantaged young people to help them gain practical skills, confidence and take responsibility to be better prepared for finding work.

The Lottery fund said: "Shaidy Characters will provide a safe environment for young people to participate fully. The promotion of young peoples' opinions and voices will be one of its main aims."

Other North-East projects recently awarded grants include: * Home-Start Seaham - £348,980, based in Easington, County Durham.

* Middlesbrough Domestic Violence Forum - £446,267.

* Women's Support Network - £379,301, also based in Middlesborough.

* Barnard Castle YMCA - £150,000, based in Teesdale.

* Safe in Tees Valley - £150,000, based in Stockton-on-Tees.

* Rye Hills School - £113,940, in Redcar and Cleveland, for sports co-ordinators.

Shaidy Characters is a project run by the Single Homeless Action Initiative in Derwentside (SHAID).

SHAID manager Kevin Howe said: "I think this is disgraceful as the majority of people who play the lottery are poor and impoverished.

"This money should be coming back to the community and not filling up the coffers of central Government.

"If we didn't have our lottery money then we would not be able to sustain our level of service.

"How is this going to benefit anyone in the North-East.

"We are already the second class relation In terms of receiving lottery funding.

"The Olympics is centralised to London but it should benefit the whole of the country.

"It will be disastrous for voluntary groups if there is a reduction in funding.

"There will be a lot of small organisation that will not survive for the next years and that is definite as they run on a shoestring budget so they will be frozen out of the whole process."

The Big Lottery Fund stressed any decision to cut its overall funding to pay for the Olympics would not affect the current grants to these organisations.

But, Sir Clive added: "I don't know how anybody could live with themselves, let alone Gordon Brown, if they were taking money off projects such as that to close an Olympic funding gap - it would be criminal.

"We have already seen our budget top-sliced and we have readily accepted that should go to the Olympics as our contribution.

"But I don't really see why all the wonderful good cause projects should have to subsidise the Olympics beyond what we have already done. I am trying to draw a line in the sand."

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell revealed last November that the estimated cost of building the Olympic park in east London had risen by £900m to £3.3bn.

She could not rule out dipping into the Lottery to make up the shortfall - despite it already contributing £1.5bn towards the Games.

With a £600m annual budget, the Big Lottery Fund distributes half of all Lottery money, making it vulnerable to cuts of hundreds of millions of pounds.

Sir Clive's high-profile warning was seen as a last-gasp attempt to head off the threat as Ms Jowell prepares to anounce a "final budget" for 2012 before the end of March.

But the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the benefits of the Olympics would "far outstrip" any loss of money to voluntary and community groups.

A spokesman added: "We have always said that these Games are not a case of London 2012, but UK 2012."

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