Bermondsey business meeting

The Southwark Portrait Bench
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Blue Market
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Southwark residents and community groups are being urged to start thinking about their neighbourhood and how they want to improve it, as Southwark Council’s Cleaner Greener Safer Programme gets underway.The window for applications to the council starts on October 29 2011 with a closing date of January 6 2012. Further details are available from Gill Kelly on 0207 525 3690.

Lottery puts big trust in South Bermondsey

At least £1 million of lottery good cause funding is to flow into South Bermondsey in Southwark as the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) announces the first 50 areas across England to benefit from its Big Local Trust programme.

BIG is investing up to £200 million over the next ten years to help turn up to 150 urban and rural neighbourhoods into better places for everyone to live.

The targeted neighbourhoods have all been selected following extensive analysis and discussion and are all places where people face many social obstacles and have a history of difficulty in obtaining resources, including funding from BIG, to help overcome them.

Alison Rowe, Big Lottery Fund Head of London region said: “The Big Local Trust is a dedicated Lottery funding stream to help people in neighbourhoods such as South Bermondsey to identify local issues and to develop the skills and confidence necessary to change things for the better.

“We hope that by securing funding for the long-term and by offering a commitment to providing dedicated local support, the Big Local Trust will bring lasting positive changes to South Bermondsey and its residents.”

An independent charitable trust will be set up to run the programme and today BIG is calling for expressions of interest from organisations who wish to apply to run the Trust. Organisations interested in becoming a Trustee are being asked to contact BIG by Thursday 12 August 2010.

In the meantime BIG will be working with a wide range of local organisations in each of the first 50 neighbourhoods. At least 50 more areas across England will be selected by BIG in the next 12 to 18 months to benefit from the programme.

The programme builds on BIG’s commitment to pioneering flexible, long-term and locally determined approaches such as the Fair Share Trust programme, which since 2002, has been investing £50million in 77 neighbourhoods across the UK.