Radstock and Westfield held a ‘Meet and Mingle’ event last week, to help tell guests about its second Community Investment plan, which will run from 2018 until 2021, as part of a ten-year project to make the most of £1 million’s worth of Lottery funding.

Participants in the event went to different stages around the room to learn more about the plan and to provide feedback; even recruiting new people for the Partnership – to help decide how the money should be spent.

The major focus of the second part of the plan will be to invest and help support youth work in the area, as the local authority moves away from providing such services. It will focus on helping young people to become life and work ready and to upskill and support people in the community to increase their prospects.

Statistical data of the area has also shown that there are serious health issues in the community, such as obesity, relatively high rates of cancer, COPD, diabetes and depression, so part of the second plan will focus on the health and wellbeing of our community, linking with the new Doctor’s Surgery once it is built on Waterloo Road in Radstock.

As well as this, Big Local has decided to invest and raise funds which will ensure the £1 million legacy continues after the ten years is up. Whilst some of the 150 Big Local groups across the country, who were also awarded Lottery money, may have spent theirs on one big project, Radstock and Westfield will be investing the money to ensure a pot of cash that could go on – potentially indefinitely.

For more information and how you could be involved, visit: www.radstockwestfield.org.uk, Facebook: @BLRadstockWestfield and Twitter: @R&WBigLocal

You can also find the office within the Carers’ Centre, on Sheepwash Bridge, Radstock.