Alison Seabrooke, chief executive, CDF
Consortium headed by the Community Development Foundation will develop a business plan for the creation of the £200m investment programme
The Big Lottery Fund has chosen a consortium led by the Community Development Foundation as the preferred candidate to lead the Big Local Trust, a £200m local investment programme.
The scheme, which should be launched next year, is expected to give a mixture of loan and grant funding worth between £1m and £2m to a group of between 100 and 150 neighbourhoods over a 10-year period.
The funding schemes will be developed and administered by local people.
Alison Seabrooke, the chief executive of the CDF, said in a statement: "This is fantastic news for CDF and our consortium partners. We have advocated for long-term programmes that don’t just operate around funding cycles. The Big Local Trust gives us this opportunity.
"We are focused on delivering strategic, lasting change that fosters ambition and entrepreneurial spirit. Our innovative investment model will ensure a legacy of change for communities that will be supported well beyond the 10 years of the programme."
The other members of the consortium are:
- the investment company CCLA which is a charity
- the Institute for Voluntary Action Research
- the National Association for Neighbourhood Management
- the regeneration consultancy Renaisi
- the social enterprise support organisation UnLtd.
The consortium has been awarded a grant of £80,000 to develop the business plan for the creation of a new trust in the summer of 2011.
A Big Lottery Fund spokeswoman said CDF was the preferred bidder, and its appointment would be formalised once detailed business plans had been drawn up for the trust.
