Dream machine that seduced a nation

The year of the lottery: Money continues to flood in but so does criticism of `elitist' grants system considered to lack vision

REBECCA FOWLER

The real winners of the National Lottery were always supposed to be the worthy causes, which have received more than pounds 1bn in its first year. But has the so-called "dream machine" and the unprecedented injection of money into public projects succeeded in uplifting the nation?

Virginia Bottomley, the Secretary of State for National Heritage, said: "This is the most successful lottery of all time. It has generated more money more quickly than any other lottery in history."

Yet last week Hugh Colver put it differently on his resignation as director of communications of the Tory party. "The National Lottery is an example of how to turn a public relations triumph into a disaster," he said.

The first distribution of grants by the five boards, representing arts, sports, charities, heritage and the millennium, has given plenty of ammunition to critics who predicted the lottery would emerge as a "tax on the poor" to fund the pastimes of the rich.

Among the most prominent grants are pounds 55m to redevelop the Royal Opera House in London, pounds 50m for a new museum of modern art on the Thames, pounds 30m for the Sadler's Wells Foundation, pounds 15.8m for the Royal Court Theatre, and pounds 13.3m to buy the Churchill papers, many of which arguably already belonged to the nation.

However, despite the emphasis placed on the more lavish projects that have received funding, only 3 per cent of the 2,300 grants made so far have been for more than pounds 1m. More than two-thirds are for less than pounds 100,000, and two-thirds of grants have also been paid outside the capital, although there is still concern that the most needy causes, especially in inner cities, have not benefited.

But as pounds 30m continues to flow into the good causes kitty each week, the question looming further down the road is not who gets the money, but whether we will have enough worthy causes to support.

Where are the visionaries ready to transform Britain's cultural skyline? The former British lotteries of the 18th and 19th centuries gave us the British Museum and Westminster Bridge. Australia's lottery gave it the Sydney Opera House. On one hand the lottery has been accused of elitism, and on the other it has been attacked for a lack of imagination.

Keith Cooper, spokesman for the Royal Opera House, said Britain has been so down-trodden by decades of cuts in public spending, leaders in the arts have forgotten how to dream of grand-scale projects.

"We're having to do an awful lot of catching up just to stop the great buildings we do have from falling down, and although it looks as if we're being incredibly greedy, we're making up for years of struggle," Mr Cooper said. "There has been a siege mentality, in which people have not had any air to develop. Whether in the fullness of time, we can be encouraged out of this slightly amateur mentality, and become more like the rest of Europe in vision remains to be seen."

A comparison of the British lottery with other lotteries worldwide by the Institute of Political Policy Research, to be published next month, looks at the direction in which the grant-making process, currently limited to funding only capital projects, may go.

The Nordic countries, which have among the highest levels of lottery ticket sales, have altered the way in which money is distributed. When Finland launched its lottery, it had expected to be able to give modest support to the arts. Now almost every artistic endeavour is supported by lottery funds.

"The conclusions we draw ultimately is that the public in Britain should have a much greater involvement in where the money goes in relation to the good causes, as they do elsewhere in Europe," Jim McCormick, co-writer of the survey, said. "It comes down to accountability, and involving citizens much more."

The real winners so far have been the modest community and arts causes, many of which were on the brink of collapse. Town halls, village greens, sports clubs and amateur dramatic societies have been given a new lease of life across Britain.

Among the projects saved from the brink is Zippo's Academy of Circus Art. It is a travelling school providing training in circus skills, which received pounds 48,000 for a new tent. "It arrived last week, and it was absolutely amazing to see it going up," Verena Cornwall, manager of the academy, said.

"We had run out of people to ask for more money, and there's no doubt the school would have been forced to close if we hadn't had this grant. The lottery has saved the circus school."

A host of brass bands, once supported by the mining industry, have also been buoyed by the lottery. The Morecambe Youth Band received pounds 48,000 for new instruments. "When it costs pounds 5,000 to buy a new tuba, and you only get pounds 200 for a park concert how do you survive?" Bernard Vause, musical director of the band, said. "We were thrilled. The lottery is providing people like us with money that was never dreamed of."

t Saturday night's winning lottery numbers were: 23, 28, 48, 10, 7 and 30 with the bonus number 3. Five tickets shared the pounds 8.5m jackpot.