Letter: Too big a slice of the pie for London

From The Rev David E. Flavell

Sir: Terence Conran tries to make a special case for Lottery funding to go to London.

He may well be right, but the suspicion remains that the National Lottery distributing bodies are run by London's Great and Good, who coincidentally enough favour spending on Great and Good projects in the capital, such as the Royal Opera House, the Globe and the Tate.

Given the elitist and metropolitan composition of the juries, we should not be surprised at their verdicts in favour of grants for rich men's pleasures in London. How many unemployed, how many ordinary pensioners and how many people from the provinces (not counting second homes) are on the distributing bodies? These people contribute to the National Lottery - when do they get their say?

If there is a special case for the capital, it would be better made before a democratically elected body rather than a small unrepresentative group from the Home Counties.

Yours sincerely,

David E. Flavell

Peterlee,

Co Durham

1 November