NI winners of Lottery People

• National Lottery

The Peoples Millions winners are:

• Castlereagh Borough Council, for a Community Playground in Caryduff (won with 6,446 votes);
• Whitehill Community Association's Skipperstone Glen (won with 2,008 votes); and
• BTCV's Greening the Glen Road project (won with 3,622 votes)
• Woodland Trust's Carnmoney Hill projects also secures funding as the highest placed runner up (with 2,516 votes)

Castlereagh Borough Council’s Carryduff Community Playground will seek to transform an unused piece of land into an accessible, cross community playground, promoting participation in physical activity and community life.

The Mayor of Castlereagh, Cllr Jimmy Spratt was thrilled with the result. He said: “The Council are delighted to win the Big Lottery Fund’s People’s Millions Contest and would like to thank everyone in the local community who worked tirelessly to promote and campaign for the new playground for Carryduff.

“The project is scheduled to commence in three months time with match funding from the Council. We hope the community will enjoy the new facility for many years to come.”

Whitehill Community Association will spend the winning cash on a clean-up and to improve an area of river at Skipperstone Glen in Whitehill, Bangor.

Diane Ewart from Whitehill Community Association said: “ This is fantastic news - it's really made our dream come true. It's such an exciting project and we can't wait to get started on it to make the this area of the Skipperstone Glen a place that families can enjoy. So much hard work was put into this campaign by many people and it's brilliant that the people of North Down and beyond have supported us."

BTCV’s project Greening The Glen will involve improving a stretch of the Glen Road in west Belfast. The Lottery cash will be used to make a series of environmental and landscape improvements in a bid to reduce vandalism in the area.

Helen Tomb from Conservation Volunteers NI said: “We are delighted to win. We received fantastic support for our campaign and we can’t wait to work with the local schools and community groups to make a big difference to the environment along the Glen Road.”

www.biglotteryfund.org.uk