“Our Place” is a new approach to Lottery Funding, which supports selected communities to develop a common vision of how their own area can develop and grow, and how Lottery Funding could support these changes.
Originally launched in 2010, Our Place has already invested in twenty five different projects in five areas across Scotland. We’re now launching the initiative in another seven communities. These new areas are:
- Auchmuty in Fife
- Camelon in Falkirk
- Lochside and Lincluden in Dumfries and Galloway
- Douglas in Dundee
- Ardrossan (Central and North East) in North Ayrshire
- Whitlawburn and Springhall in South Lanarkshire
- Shortlees in East Ayrshire
The approach represents a different way of investing Lottery money based around priorities that are set by local people themselves
Over the next five years, support contractors will be working with people in the seven Our Place communities to help a range of local people and organisations to bring about positive and lasting changes to their neighbourhood. We expect that some of the Our Place activity will lead to Big Lottery Fund investment in local projects, and we have set aside an overall budget of £10.5m for funding to be distributed across all seven communities.
All applications we receive must emerge from the asset based community development (ABCD) work that has taken place in each neighbourhood. For that reason, we do not anticipate receiving funding applications for larger grants for at least 12 months.
The Our Place areas are hosting their own launch events, and most of these are taking place before Christmas. In fact, this Hallowe’en saw some Big Lottery Fund staff surrounded by superheroes and zombies in the middle of a dimly-lit underpass in South Lanarkshire for the launch in Whitlawburn and Springhall. The evening was very much in keeping with our aspirations for this next phase of the Our Place initiative, as we have always had high hopes that it would encourage the unconventional!
Details of the support contractors for each of the areas are available on our website.
The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland Blog 