Christian Malford Village Hall: The National Lottery Communities Fund

We have asked the Communities Fund for clarification on why our application was not supported, and they responded candidly:

· The review considers the levels of poverty and deprivation in the areas mentioned. Christian Malford is not considered to have significant issues in those areas.

· Current funding priorities focus on direct support for disadvantaged groups, so the Fund tends to favour activities rather than capital projects.

The notification from the Communities Fund stated that our application did not 'sufficiently identify places or communities suffering higher levels of poverty, disadvantage or discrimination'. This will be virtually impossible for us given their clarification of this feedback that indicated their review considers the levels of poverty and deprivation in the areas covered by the application and Christian Malford is not considered to have significant issues in those categories.

We are now focusing on the National Lottery Heritage fund which has different criteria. They provide fairly rapid feedback on the initial application. A lot of work has already been done to draft the initial application, and we will embrace all that we have learned from this latest application to the Communities Fund.