HOLSWORTHY’s ring and ride bus service has secured £323,484 from The Big Lottery.

The town’s Rural Community Transport Service charity has been awarded the third highest amount out of 81 projects across the South West.

Every year, The Big Lottery Fund distributes millions of pounds of the National Lottery’s good cause money to community groups and charitable projects around the UK.

It announced last week that in the South West, it has awarded a total of £2,417,784.

The Post reported that last month the service — a registered charity — took delivery of two new buses, each costing £48,000, which were awarded following a funding application by the charity to the Department for Transport.

One bus is to replace the ring and ride service, and the second bus will provide a town shuttle service — with views from the public still being welcomed on what service they feel is needed, the frequency and pick-up/drop-off points, so a route and timetable can be established.

The £323,484 grant will help keep the charity going over the next five years, after chairman of the trustees, Martin Prentice, told the Post the charity was using its reserves.

He said £60,000 of the grant from The Big Lottery is for a new community development ambassadorial role, and said the rest of the grant ‘is equivalent to about 20% of our running costs over the five years’.

“It is 20% of what we need to find every year. We are using our reserves at the moment, there is money coming out of the bank all the time. It [The Big Lottery grant] makes us a bit more financially secure.”

Mr Prentice said the charity would like to see more clients using the ring and ride service, as it is not currently running with full buses, adding: “The criteria for the ring and ride is not an age thing — it’s not having access to private transport during the day, or difficulty using public transport.

“To use the ring and ride service, all they have to do is register at the office with their name, address and telephone number, and then they can use the service.” There is no charge for registering for the service.

A spokesperson for The Big Lottery said of Holsworthy Rural Community Transport Service: “Around 500 rurally isolated people will benefit from the services provided, particularly older clients, many of whom live alone and some who are disabled. The Ring and Ride buses cater for these people as they are equipped with tail lifts to allow wheelchair or mobility scooter access.

“Bi-monthly timetables are distributed in advance, giving people enough time and notice to book their preferred trips. As well as their weekly shop, the organisation will also organise longer journeys to places of interest, which are chosen by the beneficiaries for social activities.”

The charity’s minibuses are available to hire, self-drive or with a driver, on evenings and weekends by local youth groups, sports teams, charities and community groups. The charity also runs a volunteer car service.

Mr Prentice added: “We still need drivers for buses and volunteer drivers in any and all of the parishes. We can’t fulfill all the requests we get for the volunteer car because we haven’t got enough volunteer drivers.”

For more information, call the office on 01409 259001, email [email protected], or drop into the office in the square.

Others benefitting from The Big Lottery grants in the Post area are Marhamchurch Village Shop Limited, the Parochial Church Council of St Michael and All Angels, Bude Haven, and the 1st Callington Scout Group.

The Marhamchurch Village Shop is receiving £10,000 for a research and feedback project to find out the needs of the community.

In December 2014 the community shop began trading from temporary premises in the basement of The Bray Institute, Marhamchurch’s village hall, run entirely by volunteers.

A spokesperson for the shop said: “The shop is becoming the sort of village hub that we hoped it would be, with all the convenience, friendliness and local community feeling that it offers. Our current premises are very small and provide little storage space, which severely limits the lines we can stock. Due to this lack of space we are also unable to provide the community services we had originally envisaged, including community meeting space/tea and coffee facilities, community information point including internet access, and visitor information point.

“As the shop’s space is very restricted, we aim to build and run a new shop in the centre of the village. Planning permission for this has already been granted, and we are fundraising and applying for grants to finance the project. This overall aim has always been supported by the village. However, we need to better understand local needs in order to ensure that the new shop is designed and planned so that it meets those needs, and also to help us plan and organise our volunteers in the provision of any newly identified services indicated by the survey.”

The team behind the shop wants to involve the community in the future development of the shop, through the community engagement and feasibility project, and has arranged to meet with the Cornwall Rural Community Charity team, which has helped the team with planning and running the existing community shop.

Together, they will plan public consultation meetings, questionnaires and interviews with individuals and small groups to engage the community. When this has been completed, the shop team will feed back to the public.

The spokesperson added: “We are most grateful to the Big Lottery Awards for All, whose grant will enable us to carry out this research and feedback project to establish the needs of the community and to expand the services we offer.”

St Michael and All Angels’ PCC will use its £6,659 from The Big Lottery towards installing a kitchen. This grant, along with funding from Garfield Weston and All Churches Trust, will cover the cost of the installation.

Sandra Huffer, PCC secretary, said: “It will enable us to do so much more — most fundraising events involve food. It’s good to be doing it in a good, clean, safe, hygienic place.

“We already had the basics but we really needed a state of the art kitchen, which is what it will be.”

The work is due to start on November 9, and is expected to take about a week, with only the service on the morning of Thursday, November 10 affected, and the church otherwise running as usual.

With a concert coming up on October 22, Ms Huffer said the church is ‘brilliant acoustically’. It is used as a venue by the Bude and Stratton Folk Group, and in the past has hosted the jazz festival service.

1st Callington Scout Group has been awarded £8,673, to enable it to replace the disabled toilet and baby changing facilities at the community hall.