It sounds as though more Lottery money will be coming to heritage projects! This is a welcome reversal of the sharp decline in recent years. You can add your voice to a public consultation that ends on 21 August, so please act now!
Three years ago the National Audit Office highlighted the way grants from the HLF were expected to drop from £480 million in 1996-1997 to under £200 million by April 2009.
The proposal is on 1 April 2011, to increase the share for arts, heritage and sport to 18% each of the Lottery and reduce the Big Lottery Fund to 46%. Then on 1 April 2012, to increase the shares for arts, heritage and sport to 20% each of the Lottery and to reduce the share for the Big Lottery Fund to 40%. For more information go to http://www.culture.gov.uk/consultations/7070.aspx
Send your comments to: lottery@culture.gsi.gov.uk
or by post:
National Lottery Distribution Policy Branch
Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London SW1Y 5DH
The DCMS wants to publish all responses to the consultation after it has ended. Responses from individual people will be anonymised, but they would like to publish the names of organisations that have responded to the consultation. If you would not like your response to be published please make this clear when submitting your response.
The Mills Archive has responded:
“The Mills Archive Trust, as the national repository for all records of traditional mills and the people involved with them, strongly supports the proposed % increase in funding allocated to the heritage. We would welcome even bigger increases as the threats to our heritage increase every year.
We are happy for our details to be published as respondents to the consultation.”