Charlie Dimmock and top urban chef Oliver Rowe are helping gear up the nation’s green credentials today. They have teamed up with the BIG Lottery Fund to push out a record-breaking £100 million good cause investment in local food and environment revamp.

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The money is being rolled out by the Big Lottery Fund through two England-wide schemes being run by Groundwork UK and the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT). Funding will enable communities to grow and use local food and to regenerate local parks and open spaces.

The two organisations are each being backed with £50 million from the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces programme. This will cascade across England as communities share the funding to improve and benefit their local environments. Both schemes will be open for applications in 2008.

Urban chef Oliver Rowe, known for sourcing his restaurant produce locally, is endorsing the six-year Local Food project, which will be run by RSWT. Oliver said: “There is an abundance of great local food in London and the more we get behind our local growing communities across the country with initiatives like this one, the better it will be”

The scheme will help people manage land to grow food, develop understanding of sustainable farming methods and encourage community enterprises like farmers’ markets to stimulate local economic activity.

Stephanie Hilborne, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, said: “We are thrilled to have been appointed a Changing Spaces award partner by the Big Lottery Fund.  Local Food will support a variety of community-based projects across the whole of England from next January to help to transform the local food sector by ensuring locally grown food is accessible to as many people as possible, providing a whole range of associated health, social and environmental benefits.”

Groundwork UK will use £50 million to improve community spaces across England. The lottery funding will allow groups to create or regenerate local spaces to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhoods. Project targets include play areas, community gardens, parks, wildlife areas, ponds, courts and village greens, and pathway improvements.

Charlie Dimmock, who is backing Groundwork’s scheme, said: ''This will be a great call for communities across England to pick up their gardening tools and make their local open spaces more attractive while also becoming aware of the vital need to protect the environment.''

Groundwork UK will provide a network of trained facilitators to help successful applicants turn their ideas into reality by advising on consultation, design, biodiversity and other specialist issues.

Groundwork UK Chief Executive Tony Hawkhead said: "One thing we've learned over many years is that local people are best placed to decide how to make their area a better place to live. Community Spaces will give people the tools to turn their passion into action, to make those improvements happen and, crucially, to make them last.

The scheme will make a real difference to the quality of life in thousands of communities across the country. It builds on the experience and hard work of a number of environmental organisations and their skills and knowledge will be vital in ensuring the scheme is a success.“

Sir Clive Booth, Big Lottery Fund Chairman, said: “Changing Spaces is ultimately about engaging communities in the improvement of their local environments, promoting wellbeing, regenerating green spaces and supporting the growing and use of local food.

“Both these Award Partners are experts in their respective fields, and are in the best position to manage these schemes.  This is the largest grant BIG has ever distributed to Award Partners, demonstrating our commitment to the environment and to people’s health. We look forward to seeing the positive impact of these two schemes in communities across England.”

Further information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102 030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

Biographical Notes

• Charlie Dimmock is an English gardening expert and presenter. She first came to the public's attention in 1988, when she joined the BBC gardening series Ground Force.  Since then, she has presented such programmes as The Joy of Gardening, Charlie’s Garden Army and has also presented coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show.
• Oliver Rowe, The Urban chef, is the owner and head chef of the restaurant Konstam, which sources more than 90% of its produce from within the area covered by the London Underground. Oliver’s search for ingredients was followed by the BBC for their 2006 Urban Chef series. His passion and commitment for promoting locally grown produce stems from his love of seasonal food.
• Albert Tucker is a member of the UK Board of the Big Lottery Fund. He has had senior management and non-executive roles in regeneration, community development and social enterprise.He is a leading figure in the fair-trade movement and overseas development, and advocate for poor small farmers in global trade and policy. He has a longstanding track record with leading charitable funders financing UK and international development. He currently works as an independent consultant and recently worked with the BBC contributing to their Africa Lives season.

Background notes

• The Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces programme was launched in November 2005 to help communities enjoy and improve their local environments. The programme funds a range of activities from local food schemes and farmers markets, to education projects teaching people about the local environment.
• The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
• The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
• Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £20 billion has now been raised and more than 250,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.

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