Christmas comes early for Upper Coquetdale’s only community transport hub

A community transport hub in rural Northumberland is celebrating being awarded more than £200,000 from The National Lottery Community Fund to keep the local community connected.

Thanks to National Lottery players, Upper Coquetdale Community Transport (UCCT) has received £209,000 to invest in a new minibus. Established in 2004, UCCT is the only community transport organisation working in Upper Coquetdale, providing essential and affordable public transport services to a rurally isolated community.

Transport Manager Lesley Leeson explains: “The community transport hub is so important to the people who use its services. As a rural community other transport options often aren’t available, especially for people with mobility issues. So, as a start we make sure people can still get out of their homes, whether that’s to medical appointments or getting their weekly shop. But what we do is so much more than that – we care for all our users and look out for their wellbeing. Our volunteer drivers in particular do an amazing job – they know all our service users, sometimes they are the only people they see all week. It makes the social element of our service just as important as getting people from A to B.”

In 2020, The National Lottery Community Fund awarded £61,000 to fund an all-terrain electric vehicle so UCCT can reach people in more isolated areas and transport smaller groups, alongside the minibus which is also used for community events and excursions. During the pandemic, the charity pivoted from transporting people to transporting things, with 40 volunteers helping more than 100 people a week. For example, picking up prescriptions or shopping when it was impossible to get an online delivery slot, taking shopping lists over the phone if they didn’t have email.

UCCT also began working with Thropton Lunch Club to deliver soup during lockdowns and now take around a group of older people every other week to enjoy fresh homemade hot food together in the memorial hall – a Community Action Northumberland (CAN) warm hub.

Lesley says, “COVID really showed how much communities like ours rely on each other, especially being in a rural area. We’ve grown rapidly over the last few years and currently work with over 300 individual users and now provide more services, including organised day trips throughout the year. Because we know our users so well, we are also flexible in how we support them. For instance, recently one lady was housebound after an operation, so we were able to bring shopping and prescriptions – stopping for a chat whilst we’re there. These things are essential to people’s lives, and they don’t have those services from anywhere else, so we’re thrilled to receive the funding – it means we can keep providing these services for at least the next five years – including through the challenging winter weather!”

Local resident and regular service user Barbara Denison said: "As well as companionship, I get to go out regularly to places I would not be able to get to on my own – I live at the top of a steep hill and would be unable to leave the house without these trips. UCCT is a real lifeline."

The National Lottery Community Fund awards grants to strengthen society and improve lives across the UK, supporting activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable.

Duncan Nicholson, Regional Head of Funding for the North East & Cumbria at The National Lottery Community Fund said, “We know that almost half of the local population in Upper Coquetdale are over 60, compared to 24% nationally so services like UCCT provide a vital lifeline for people with mobility issues or who might otherwise be isolated or lonely. Thanks to National Lottery players we’ve awarded almost £6.8 million to 138 projects in the North East and Cumbria in the past three months*, supporting communities to come together and make a difference to people who need it most across our region.”

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700 projects to turn their great ideas into reality.

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk

Date published: 18 December, 2024
Region: England (North East)

Notes to Editors

*Figures are for funding awarded from 29 September 2024 – 5 December 2024

About The National Lottery Community Fund

We are the largest non-statutory community funder in the UK – community is at the heart of our purpose, vision and name.

We support activities that create resilient communities that are more inclusive and environmentally sustainable and that will strengthen society and improve lives across the UK.

We’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to work closely with government to distribute vital grants and funding from key government programmes and initiatives.

As well as responding to what communities tell us is important to them, our funding is focused on four key missions, supporting communities to:

1. Come together

2. Be environmentally sustainable

3. Help children and young people thrive

4. Enable people to live healthier lives.

Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, we distribute over £600 million a year through 13,000+ grants and plan to invest over £4 billion of funding into communities by 2030. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since The National Lottery began in 1994, £49 billion has been raised and more than 690,000 individual grants have been made across the UK - the equivalent of around 240 National Lottery grants in every UK postcode district.

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