Following on from my article in November, I was delighted to hear this week that two groups in the constituency have been successful in their applications for funding from the Aviva Community Fund. The Aviva Community Fund will finance over 800 projects this year, and it is fantastic that two local projects won enough votes and impressed the judging panel.

The winners are Valley School in Bramhall, and Woodford Cricket Club.

Valley School caters for pupils aged between 3 – 11 years with complex and severe special educational needs and disabilities, and their playground equipment which can be accessed by wheelchair users is extremely limited. The funding will help them to provide much needed accessible swings to help ensure that all children at the school are able to achieve their maximum physical development and enjoy physical activity.

Woodford Cricket Club applied for funding to help fund a project to drain part of the ground that keeps flooding, meaning they will lose less training nights and matches to bad weather. Sports clubs play a huge part in our local communities, not least because they provide fantastic opportunities for children to be involved in sport. I hope the money will help the club continue their work expanding their schools programme and junior section.

Congratulations to both groups and thank you so much to everyone who voted for the many worthy causes who applied for funding. Whilst not every group was successful this time, I understand from Aviva that the scheme will run again this year and I hope many more groups will be encouraged to apply.

More information about winners can be found here:

https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/acfcms/get-involved#browseProjects