Overjoyed fundraisers in Berrow were celebrating on Thursday evening (November 26th) after learning they had won £50,000 of National Lottery funding to build a new play area in the village.
The news was broken to the stunned team on Thursday afternoon by bosses from the People’s Millions competition after the village was named the ‘lucky loser’ in a TV phone competition.
It means the project to refurbish the play area on the Village Green and turn it into a modern new facility called the ‘Berrow Empowering Play Area’ can now proceed.
As we first reported earlier this month, Berrow Parish Council’s application for the £50k of funding was short-listed – but to get the cash, the Berrow campaigners needed to win a TV telephone vote, overseen by ITV West.
They failed to win Monday’s competition for the most votes, but have instead secured the cash by becoming the project to collect the most votes as a ‘loser’. Hundreds of votes were cast by Burnham-On-Sea.com readers, with one member of our discussion forums even making 140 votes on separate phones to help the bid!
Berrow Parish Council Clerk Lynn Smith told Burnham-On-Sea.com on Thursday evening: “We’re absolutely thrilled. It’s wonderful news and makes all the hard work in recent months well worth it!”
She thanked everyone who had voted for the bid earlier this week. Work will begin on the new play area soon with the aim of getting it completed by next summer.
