BLOG: Lucky numbers and lasting impact 

A reflection by Graham Duxbury, Groundwork’s UK Chief Executive.

Happy 30th birthday to the National Lottery! Like many others commenting and commemorating I too remember Noel Edmonds breathlessly trying to explain to us this strange new world of balls, bonus balls and machines called Guinevere and Lancelot. 

I also remember the experts in probability trying to convince us that the numbers 1-6 in sequence were just as likely to come up as our carefully devised collection of ‘lucky numbers’. Then there were the tightly controlled office syndicates and the heavy burden of responsibility for whoever was charged with buying the tickets that week, just in case it was ‘the week’. 

What sticks in my memory most, though, are the stories of the lives and places changed with the funds raised by lottery players. The lottery has been a vital source of funding for Groundwork, helping us support people and communities across the UK to improve the local environment, their sense of belonging and their life chances. 

I joined Groundwork shortly after the launch of one our first, and most ambitious programmes – Changing Places, supported by a £22m grant from the Millennium Commission. Through this, 21 neglected, ex-industrial sites across England and Wales were regenerated into wildlife havens, country parks and urban green spaces.  Working with the grain of nature and with the full involvement of local communities, these were pioneering examples of nature recovery, with many kickstarting wider improvements. My personal favourite – Parc Penallta near Caerphilly – features ‘Sultan’, an earthwork pit pony complete with lumps of coal placed there by miners previously employed in the colliery. 

Wind forward ten years and Groundwork was managing the Community Spaces programme, a £50m scheme backed by the Big Lottery Fund which put funds directly into the hands of community organisations to support the creation and improvement of more than 900 community gardens, pocket parks, playgrounds and wildlife areas. When wandering through the park in which I spent most of my childhood – Bold Venture in Darwen – I still get a small thrill seeing the plaques and inscriptions marking this and other lottery schemes which have helped protect historic features and reinvent these vital green spaces for future generations. 

What’s been so great about many of the lottery-funded projects and programmes we’ve been involved in is that they haven’t just improved the physical fabric of communities but also strengthened the social fabric in places where this was frayed or non-existent. Community Spaces helped more than 350 groups constitute for the first time, with more than 70% crediting the programme with increasing their volunteer numbers and nearly 80% describing better working relationships with their local authority as a result. 

This focus on capacity building was central to the work we did supporting networking and learning as part of the Big Lottery Fund’s Communities Living Sustainably programme, and is at the heart of two current programmes supported by the Community Fund – our Northern Network of ‘green community hubs’ and our Communities Prepared programme, providing training and resources to help local groups play a bigger role in responding to extreme weather events and other emergencies. 

Helping young people achieve their potential and play a full and active role in their communities is central to our approach and it’s no exaggeration to say that lottery funds have been instrumental in helping many thousands of young people realise aspirations that otherwise would have eluded them – from funding grassroots sports to overcoming barriers to work.  Along the way this has involved lottery funders taking imaginative – and brave – decisions, like supporting local Talent Match partnerships and then taking on the risks of acting as accountable body for EU funds through the Building Better Opportunities programme. Most recently the National Lottery Heritage Fund helped us to deliver New to Nature, a cutting-edge programme of paid work placements giving young people from under-represented groups a full year of valuable experience while bringing much-needed diversity to the environmental sector. 

Without doubt, lottery funding has fundamentally transformed the face and feel of communities across the country. More than this, however, lottery funders have driven change in the way things work – supporting innovation and championing new models of delivery, facilitating new relationships and partnerships and ensuring charities are more effective and resilient. 

As the sector faces the latest wave of uncertainty, cost increases and spending reductions, their place at the heart of civil society has never been more important. 

Notes to editors

For more information please contact: media@groundwork.org.uk

About Groundwork

Groundwork is a charity working locally and nationally to transform lives in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities.

We’re passionate about creating a future where every neighbourhood is vibrant and green, every community is strong and able to shape its own destiny, and no one is held back by their background or circumstances. We help people gain confidence and skills, get into training and work, protect and improve green spaces, lead more active lives and overcome significant challenges such as poverty, isolation, low skills and poor health: www.groundwork.org.uk