Peak District first loser of Olympics lottery

New Mills Volunteer Centre looks to be one of the first losers of the London 2012 Olympics after they failed to win lottery funding.

The failure of the five-year bid left such a hole in their finances that three members of the small team are being made redundant, the three who remain are having their hours cut – and ten of the 15 groups organised through the Centre are to be axed.

Centre Manager Dorothy Scapens said: "The fact is the Reaching Communities Fund is over ten times over-subscribed.

"Groups such as ours are putting a lot of time and effort in for a bid and you have just a one in ten chance.

"I was basically told that because it was oversubscribed by a long way it was having to turn down good applications such as ours.

"I am very concerned that a lot of money that should have come to cases such as ours is being siphoned off for the Olympics."

If successful, the bid would have paid for staff costs and allowed services and groups to be expanded further.

"All of our services will be carrying on as normal: the community car scheme, which is the biggest, the befriending scheme, shopping for the housebound and light gardening and basic DIY work," said Mrs Scapens.

But ten of the groups have been suspended, including craft for life and social inclusion, lip-reading and cookery for people with learning difficulties.

Mrs Scapens said many of the people who attend have very few other opportunities to interact.

"One person said the luncheon club was 'The only meal I share with anybody all week.'

"Another said: 'If I didn't come here I would just be staring at my own four walls,'" she explained.

The centre will now be closed on Fridays with the exception of one Friday a month when the Alzheimer's café is run in the morning.

"A lot of people have been involved for many years and worked hard to get the building and to build it up.

"There has been a lot of heartbreak," said Mrs Scapens.

Rest assured there will be a thousand or more cases such as this because of the Olympics from which people of the Peak District will not benefit!

Chris Sabian, Peak District View - 2007-03-31 03:55:17