£147MILLION DROP IN LOTTERY GRANTS TO LONDON SINCE 1998

12.01.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 13th Apr 2004

Liberal Democrat London Mayoral candidate Simon Hughes today revealed new figures that show the amount of lottery funding given to London Boroughs has plummeted by £147million (43%) since 1998.

The figures, revealed in a Parliamentary answer, show that in 1998/9, £342,401,836 was given to London Boroughs in Lottery awards. By 2003/04 this had dropped to £194,850,272 - a drop of £147,551,564.

Simon Hughes MP said:-

"When there are so many projects in London that are crying out for cash it is worrying that grant awards have dropped by such a huge amount. With projects across both inner and outer London in desperate need of money to revitalise, reinvigorate and rejuvenate, boroughs and the Mayor must work together to help get funds for projects.

"It is time the Mayor got behind London projects, and offered help to those organisations who wish to apply for lottery funding, rather than promising more equal redistribution of a shrinking budget."

"This is yet another example of Blair's Mayor failing to deliver on one of his key priority promises."

ENDS

Notes to editors

Mayor Livingstone on his website address says about obtaining Lottery funding for London:-

"The proportion of successful applications for National Lottery funding has been lower in London than anywhere else in the UK. And while there have been a number of wonderful lottery-funded achievements — such as the Tate Modern — for a significant majority of cultural organisations, London has not been getting its fair share. One of my priorities will be to ensure that Lottery spend in London meets more equitably the aspirations of all London's cultural communities.

http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/state/solculture.jsp

Borough wide figures can be obtained from Richard Stokoe on 0207 227 1326