independent Cornish news and comment

HEARTLANDS GETS £22 MILLION - IS THIS WHAT POOL NEEDS?

MULTI-MILLION LANDMARKS FUNDING PUTS CORNWALL HEARTLANDS ON THE MAP

BIG celebrations are getting underway in Cornwall with the news that Cornwall’s Heartlands project has won through and been awarded over £22 million by the Big Lottery Fund’s Living Landmark’s programme to transform the area into a world heritage site.


The multi-million pound scheme, led by Kerrier District Council, has been given the multi-million pound backing by the Big Lottery Fund to transform 7.5 hectares of former mining land in Pool, between Redruth and Camborne, into a World Heritage Site and parkland.

Mark Cotton, Big Lottery Fund Head of Region for the South West, said: “The Fund is delighted to announce the success of Cornwall’s Heartlands. This follows a lot of hard work by the project - and some extremely tough decisions by the Fund’s Living Landmarks committee. I am looking forward to seeing this truly ground-breaking project come to life and capturing the imagination of the people of Cornwall and individuals across the country. This award will create a truly great place to live, work and play.”

Heartlands is a community-led vision to transform Cornwall’s most derelict urban area into a truly inspirational cultural landscape. The site will include formal gardens, exciting play-space, performance space for events for over 4,000 people and new cycle links to local trails. Heartlands will include stunning new public art with a range of water features, sculpture and contemporary architecture directly complementing the Grade 2* Listed Robinson’s Shaft mine complex.

There will be new education and health facilities for local people and the scheme has been designed to be a positive part of everyday life. Heartlands will act as a catalyst for the wider regeneration of the Camborne-Pool-Redruth area.

Kerrier District Council Portfolio Holder for Economy & Regeneration, Councillor, Mrs Carolyn Rule, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Heartlands has been awarded the Living Landmarks grant, it is testimony to the passion for the project locally and a real belief in ensuring the future prosperity of the area. Heartlands will provide such a range of services in a beautiful new landscape, and the World Heritage Site setting will greatly enhance local pride – we are sure that this will now be the catalyst for future growth and prosperity for the Camborne-Pool-Redruth area.”


Local Kerrier District Councillor for Pool, Councillor Malcolm Moyle, added: “We are absolutely thrilled that the Big Lottery Fund has supported the people of Pool through their grant to Heartlands. This will be the big scheme that the area has vitally needed and will ensure that we will have an environment and range of facilities that will make Pool a better place to live for generations to come. Hopefully the direct impact of this funding, and the role of Heartlands in the future will spread the benefit of the funding across the wider region. We can’t wait to see it happen.”

Heartlands is one of three successful projects that are sharing awards totalling just over £70 million from the Living Landmarks programme. The other projects are The Greater East Belfast Partnership’s Connswater Community Greenway that has been awarded £23.5million, and Falkirk Council’s The Helix that receives £25million.

The aim of the Living Landmarks programme is to provide funding of up to £25 million to create major new capital projects that transform, revitalise and regenerate their communities. In August 2006, 23 projects made it onto the final Living Landmarks shortlist and were each awarded up to £250,000 to develop their proposals, leaving them much better placed to take their schemes further.

Projects that applied were given extensive scrutiny by the Living Landmarks Committee, which included experts in the areas of architecture and regeneration, and have substantial professional experience of large-scale capital projects.

In this extremely competitive funding programme the three successful projects were selected from a total of 313 initial applicants.

An even bigger grant from the Big Lottery Fund of up to £50 million is to be decided in December as part of The People’s £50 Million contest. Four projects will be screened on ITV1 during the week commencing 3rd December*, before being put to the public vote to decide which project wins the cash. In the running are Black Country as Urban Park; The Edge at the Eden Project; Sherwood: The Living Legend; and Sustrans' Connect2. Further details can be found at www.thepeoples50million.org.uk. * [ITV always reserves the right to change its programme schedules].


Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030 Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: 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.