Bognor community project gets cash boost

The Bognor Community Action Network has been awarded 146,448 from the National Lottery's creating communities fund.

This has secured the project's future for the next three years by paying for its running costs.

The grant will enable new projects '“ such as street dance sessions for ten year olds and exercises classes for older people '“ to be started alongside existing sessions such as healthy cooking and eating.

All take place around the network's base at Bognor Youth and Community Centre on Westloats Lane.

Carol Fullick, the network's development manager, said: "We would still have been able to carry on without the funding but it would have been much harder. We would have had to spend a lot of time trying to get the money from other sources."

One of the scheme's volunteers, mother-of-two Kez Bridger, said: "It's nice to see the change in a lot of kids around here since Bognor CAN started. Their attitudes have changed and the way they speak to people.

"The turnaround in them has been amazing. It's really nice watching the whole thing growing and progressing."

Bognor CAN was formed as an independent project in April 2007 after being part of the broader Pevensey Project run by various councils and community groups for several years.

It has run a town show on the Hampshire Avenue recreation ground - the next is on August 21 - and has staged a range of community schemes for all ages.

But it survived on a series of grants before the National Lottery gave it the ability to thrive until 2013.

It took a year for the funding to be awarded after Mrs Fullick began the application. The award was celebrated at a ceremony at the youth and community centre led by Bognor's mayor, Sandra Daniells.

She said: "I would like to say thank you to everyone in Bognor CAN for doing things rather than just talking or writing about them.

"This is a pretty deprived area of Bognor and it needs all the help it can get. Hopefully, this will enable you to go on and do even more in the community. I would like to see you grow and flourish."

Another of Bognor CAN's volunteers, Mandy Phillips, said she had acquired skills in healthy cooking and first aid through taking part in its sessions.

"Both myself and my two kids have gained a lot through Bognor CAN," she said.

"Without it, I would just be sitting at home and they would be without half the activities they do at the moment."

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