National Lottery Charities Board North West

A profile of the North West Region and the North West Strategic Plan

The North West region comprises Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. It contains 26 of the 150 most disadvantaged areas in the country. Most of the population lives in the Mersey basin, but about 80 per cent of the region is agricultural rural land.

The North West has a strong voluntary sector, with about 14,000 registered charities and voluntary sector support agencies in almost every local authority area. Even so gaps exist in funding with certain geographical areas and groups doing less well than others.

We are committed to meeting the needs of those at the greatest disadvantage in the North West, and our Strategic Plan identifies the following priorities for our funding over the next three years:

1. Areas containing multiple deprivation and disadvantage. We are particularly keen to fund community-based projects which tackle the social effects of long-term unemployment.
2. Rural disadvantage. We are interested in helping to overcome disadvantage due to isolation and lack of access to services, (as well as seasonal, casual and low paid employment, and poor housing). Projects we might fund include those concerning village halls, community transport and mobile services.
3. Minority ethnic communities. People from minority ethnic communities are concentrated in Greater Manchester, Liverpool and the Lancashire mill towns. We wish to support projects which improve these communities� access to health and social welfare services, help children whose first language is not English, and/or help to combat racial harassment.
4. People with disabilities. We wish to support a range of projects to benefit disabled people, including those that improve access to buildings through capital refurbishment; remove gaps in the provision of day care for people with learning disabilities, provide practical support for carers of people with disabilities, including mental health rehabilitation, employment and training.
5. Women, especially those on low income. We would like to support initiatives tackling domestic violence, help and support groups for survivors of abuse and a range of other community-based initiatives to promote women�s economic independence.
6. Young people. We wish to improve day care services for children. We have also identified anti-racist work with young people and initiatives to tackle drug use and delinquency amongst young people as priority areas for project funding.
7. Older people. The proportion of the population above retirement age is growing, as is the pressure on the statutory services that care for them. Projects to help older people, particularly those providing care services for older people at risk, are of particular interest to us.
8. Voluntary sector development. This part of our strategy seeks to build a vibrant sector and to develop skills and management expertise for the long-term.
9. Refugees Support for refugees is a particular need in the metropolitan areas of Manchester and Liverpool.

During the coming months we will be setting up a series of briefings across the region for our priority groups.