A free advice service for local residents is celebrating after being awarded almost half a million pounds in National Lottery funding.
Citizens Advice North Lancashire received the money to support its work helping residents living with disabilities and long-term health conditions, and those who are particularly vulnerable.
The charity, which has offices in Lancaster and Morecambe, will use the money to continue to provide their Advice Matters service which provides support and advice by working in the community in GP surgeries, other charities and by doing home visits.
Citizens Advice North Lancashire has been running since 1945 and is staffed by a team of 34 and over 60 volunteers. It is part of the national Citizens Advice service in England and Wales but it is also an independent charity in its own right.
The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see the existing team able to continue their work, and expand the number of drop in locations it operates from.
The team hopes that it will be able to help more residents who are struggling with issues to do with finances, benefits, housing, employment family law or budgeting over the next three years.
“We are delighted that the National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way," said Joanna Young, Acting CEO of Citizens Advice North Lancashire.
"Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to support more residents over the next three years. This is important in the context of the cost of living crisis which is affecting so many people in our community.”
The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, 'It starts with community', which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.
As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.
National Lottery players raise over £30m a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year The National Lottery Community Fund was able to distribute over half a billion pounds (£588.2 million) of life-changing funding to communities.
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