10 July 2003
SPELLAR ALLOCATES £2.7MILLION FOR ‘LEFT BEHIND’ COMMUNITIES
The first areas to benefit from the Local Community Fund, launched in February to boost disadvantaged communities, were announced today by John Spellar MP, the Minister with responsibility for Social Development.
More than £1million is to go to communities in Belfast and a further £780,000 will be directed to Londonderry and the North West. East Antrim is to receive £234,000 together with £166,000 for North Down and Ards and £150,000 for Ballycastle/Coleraine. Other areas to be targeted include Mid Ulster, South Down, Omagh, Newry and Mourne and Craigavon.
Officials from the Department for Social Development will open early discussions with the District Councils and Partnership bodies in these areas to finalise provisions and get the Fund working for communities as quickly as possible.
The Minister said: "We want to give practical help to the most disadvantaged areas, the people who feel they have been left behind by the gains in peace and prosperity of recent years. The communities that have suffered the most are often weakest in terms of their organisation and feel disillusioned.
"The Local Community Fund is all about giving local people the means to create a better future. It can allow them to take small but important actions such as improvements to the look of their street or estate or to create better local activities for their community, both young and old."
The Minister added that the Fund could also be used to train local people and encourage them to play a bigger part in their local communities. He said it will respond to the local priorities rather than dictating them. He continued:
"I am in no doubt that building community capacity and leadership will take time. I know that the Local Community Fund cannot address all the difficulties but it is backed by earlier work under the Executive’s Programme of Government, the work of the Community Action Group, the commitments in the Joint Declaration and the Government’s plans for neighbourhood renewal, which I launched last month.
"Using the North Belfast Community Action Unit as a model, the Local Community Fund will focus on disadvantaged areas in other parts of Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland.
"We are starting where disadvantage is greatest and where community capacity is weakest. Further allocations will follow as we identify more communities with weak infrastructure."
Notes to Editors:
- The objects of the Local Community Fund are:
to develop community capacity and leadership;
to promote partnership working, within and between communities;
to help communities improve their local environments;
to develop intervention programmes with young people; and
to encourage more active participation by women in local community services.
- Initial areas within were identified by the application of the Noble Indices of Multiple Deprivation supplemented by research undertaken by the Community Foundation of Northern Ireland, (CFNI).
- Further work to develop measures of weak community infrastructure for use throughout Northern Ireland will be undertaken within the next few months and the outputs from this will be used as a basis for discussion with elected and community representatives prior to subsequent allocations. The balance of the £3 million Fund will be allocated based on the results of this research.
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