The headline has always been “£1million for each Big Local area”. Well, by the time it’s all finished, close to £2million of investment has worked its way into the North Cleethorpes community.
The headline for Big Local has always been “One Million Pounds” for each area.
Essentially that was true, and £1million has been given via Local Trust (from the National Lottery) to each Big Local area in the UK including Big Local North Cleethorpes. That money has then been spent over the course of around ten years.
But in fact through a variety of factors we’re very proud of the fact that in reality the impact of funding on the North Cleethorpes area during the duration of the Big Local North Cleethorpes programme has been closer to £2million – around double the headline figure.
The actual investment drawn down from the national pot has actually been:
£1million headline figure
plus £32k of ‘pre-plan’ or ‘getting started’ money (around 2012-13)
plus a topup early on of £105k when funding was reallocated across all areas in the UK
plus £22.5k of ‘marketplace’ designated funding around 2014
and finally a £50k emergency covid response fund in 2020.
A total of around £1.2million of direct investment.
That money has funded each and every programme and investment be it large and obvious (Pavilion refurbishment, building a ramp, buying 82 Grimsby Road etc) or smaller and less obvious (grants to families, young engagements, training, micro grants and more).
Everything in this legacy record on this website has been as a result of this investment.
But the money and investment has also grown.
Match funding comes from two sources – new and additional grants, or time given. And both have been very considerable over the ten years of this programme and both have combined to bring our total extra funding brought into the area up to around £800k, so bringing the investment totals up to around £2million.
Time benefit comes in many forms. When volunteers support a project then that time could have cost money if bought in – so it’s useful match funding. Every hour that our partnership committee meet or run projects is a benefit to the area. Large projects such as refurbishing the Pavilion or refurbishing 82 Grimsby Road, or supporting events or doing environmental project can result in 100s of hours of volunteer time worth thousands of pounds.
But the Big Local North Cleethorpes team working with partners such as VANEL and Capacity Buildings have been instrumental in making additional funding applications from additional funders to run completely new projects to benefit the area or to top up existing funds.
Examples include:
Two heritage lottery funded projects, new to the area and worth £10k each.
Investments of Green Influencers into the area worth £1000s
Funding from UKSPF, or Heritage Lottery or Awards for All or Grimsby Town Football Club or the Police and Crime Commissioner or many others. Each fund and grant adds to something Big Local has already been doing and adds to the total investment in the area.
And we’ve worked with groups to encourage their own hunt for funds. A £5k investment in one project might be backed up by an additional £10k that group raises from another source. All the work that the team at Moon on the Water or Reynolds or the Hangout or CARE do is supported by, and sometimes reliant on the funding that Big Local North Cleethorpes has been able to invest.
Funding started arriving into North Cleethorpes in 2012 as part of the effort to get a Big Local off the ground. Since then there have been 5 rounds of planning and investment of the Local Trust national funds which have distributed money via Big Local for the benefit of the area. And throughout those years from 2013-2024 Big Local and partners such as VANEL have hunted for additional funds and brought in huge match funding.
All of that £2million or more has been invested in the community of North Cleethorpes and of that we’re all very proud.