Walsall will be receiving a half a million pound grant from the Big Lottery Fund, which will contribute to a £750,000 programme over the next three years between Walsall Housing Group – whg – and Walsall tPCT.
This is the maximum grant the Big Lottery Fund has ever paid out under its Reaching Communities programme, and has been secured against strong national competition. The funding will be used to encourage local people across Walsall get involved and take ownership of the development of their neighbourhoods as part of Walsall’s regeneration plans for the next ten years.
The project has a strong health promotion and prevention element, training local people to deliver and understand health and lifestyle messages that will enable them to improve their personal and social well being. The project will recruit a team of local people from the neighbourhoods being regenerated and train them as community mentors. The project will also support the development of up to fifteen voluntary and community organisations.
whg and Walsall tPCT have developed a unique partnership to work together to tackle the links between housing and health. This is one of the first major projects to be delivered through this partnership. Walsall tPCT, whg and its subsidiary Visionary Investment Enhancing Walsall (VIEW) Regeneration Fund is providing match funding over the next three years to support the project. It will enable the organisations to pool their resources to improve communities and boost health promotion by a total of £750,000 over the next three years.
whg Group Chief Executive Liz Walford said: ‘To win £500,000 worth of funding to ensure that local people play a key part in the regeneration of their neighbourhoods and to support better health and well-being from the Big Lottery Fund is great news for everyone, especially our customers. The links between health and housing are strong, and we want to ensure we are utilising the resources of both of the main housing and health organisations in Walsall to assist in improving communities.
Paul Jennings, Chief Executive of Walsall tPCT, said: ‘This is fantastic news for Walsall and underlines the strength of working in partnership. By coming together we have been able to secure a large grant to develop the health promotion work of both whg and the tPCT. In turn this grant will lever in extra funding and add to whg’s on-going capacity building activities.
‘We are looking forward to taking up the work around our diverse communities and ensuring we engage with local people and organisations to find out what local issues there are around health and well-being. We will be recruiting ten community health champions to enable us to work at a grass-roots level, helping to create local jobs and empower people.’
