Proposals for a £50,000 revamp of a play area in Berrow were unveiled on Tuesday evening (May 19th)… but the scheme will only go ahead if the village wins a National Lottery windfall!
Berrow Parish Council has submitted a £50,000 application to the People’s Millions scheme, which helps community projects across the UK by providing National Lottery money.
The village’s bid for the cash has been sent off and now residents face a wait of several months before finding out if they have been successful.
Lynn Smith, Clerk of Berrow Parish Council, told Burnham-On-Sea.com at Tuesday’s meeting: “Our current play area badly needs updating to bring it up to modern standards – the childrens’ slide alone is 30 years old.”
“We discussed how to get the necessary funding and decided to put together a bid for £50,000 through the People’s Millions scheme.”
“We now a face a nervous wait until September to find out whether we have been successful and our proposals will probably be featured on ITV West over the coming months.”
Villagers got a chance to see two of the proposals to revamp the new play area at Tuesday’s annual town council meeting – one is valued at £50,000 and the other has a cost of £70,000.
The proposals include new, modern playing equipment covering a wider area of the playing field besides Berrow Road.
Since being launched four years ago, the People’s Millions scheme has awarded more than £18 million to a total of 318 projects across the UK.
In this, the fifth year, there are 69 awards of £50,000 to give away – a total of nearly £3.5 million. The aim of the programme is to fund projects that help people transform or enjoy their environment and communities.
Our photo shows Peter Dunball, Vice Chairman of Berrow Parish Council, with local resident Hazel Cheeseman looking at one set of proposals for the village’s play area with SMP’s Andrew Monson (right). The existing play area (above) could be transformed into the one below.
