Big Local programme closing – FAQs

Big Local is a programme funded by The National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF). It is a unique programme that puts residents across England in control of decisions about issues that affect their own lives and neighbourhoods.

In 2010-12, TNLCF awarded £1m each to 150 Big Local areas. The programme was designed to reach communities that had not historically received Lottery money or public funding.

The areas chosen were amongst the most deprived on the Index of Multiple Deprivation and many also lacked civic assets. The hypothesis was that many of them were not receiving their fair share of funding because they lacked organisations and individuals with the knowledge, skills and contacts to raise it.

From the outset, Big Local was designed to be radically different from other funding programmes. Contrasting with conventional, top down, time-limited, project-led funding, awards were made to Big Local areas on the basis that they could be spent over time, at communities’ own pace, and according to their own plans and priorities.

Throughout the course of the programme, Big Local areas have worked to transform their neighbourhoods.

In 2010-12, TNLCF awarded £1m each to 150 Big Local areas, to be administered by Local Trust, an independent charitable foundation. As a result of the subsequent growth of the Big Local endowment held by Local Trust, areas each received a further £150k in funding in 2020-21. 

The programme is delivered by Local Trust, a national charity set up in 2012 for this purpose.

Local Trust works with Big Local areas, supporting them to manage their grants, network with their peers and develop the skills to deliver lasting local change. Local Trust also provides specialist technical support to areas, as well as monitoring and evaluating the overall programme.

Alongside supporting Big Local areas, Local Trust’s work demonstrates the value of long-term, community-led funding. Using learnings from the Big Local programme, Local Trust is bringing about a wider transformation in the way policy makers, funders and other agencies engage with communities.

From the very start of Big Local, the programme was designed to end in March 2026, with all money spent.

Individual Big Local areas are closing one by one, with bespoke support from Local Trust.

For more than a decade, the programme has shown how, with the right investment, trusting communities and giving them more power will enable local people to significantly improve their quality of life and the places in which they live.

After the programme ends, residents in many Big Local areas will continue their work in different ways – from continuing to run and raise funds for the community buildings they have invested in, to setting up community-interest organisations, passing on activities to other local partner organisations or focusing on the continuation of specific, needs-based local projects.

Whatever they decide to do, they will not have to start from scratch. Many Big Local areas have established networks of engaged local people and the partnerships and relationships that will help them to sustain the momentum created through the Big Local programme. 

Local Trust was set up specifically to deliver Big Local and will not continue when the programme ends.  

For the remainder of the programme, we will continue to support Big Local areas still delivering projects and spending their funding. We will also continue to advocate for the power of community leadership – and call on those in a position to do so to invest in it for the future.