Actresses Suzanne Collins and Anne Marie Davies, who starred together in Brookside and who now run a business providing drama-based workshops to local young people, handed over the cash to representatives of the successful groups at the official launch of the Your Wirral fund at Tranmere Rovers on Monday.

Your Wirral is looking to hand out up to £300,000 before April 2008 to groups from anywhere in Wirral who meet one or more of the seven fund objectives. Interested parties can apply for any amount up to £5,000. The four that received funding this week highlighted how broad ranging and diverse the type of groups that might benefit from Your Wirral funding could be.

They are:-

• Greenleas girls’ under-10s football team: The newest and youngest team bearing the prestigious Greenleas name have received funding to pay for new kit.
• Birkenhead Central Parents’ Forum: This established group needed funds to help them stage a multi-cultural, Winter Festivals Celebration to be held at the Lauries Community Centre in Birkenhead on the 13^th December 2007.
• Wirral School of Samba: Wirral’s well-known samba drummers will deliver a series of workshops throughout Wirral thanks to the grant they have received from Your Wirral.
• Wirral Change: Funding will assist 29 black or ethnic minority residents overcome barriers that are in the way of their gaining access to employment, education or training.

Speaking shortly before handing over the cheques, Suzanne Collins told the audience of nearly 100 community representatives: “We are both delighted to be here tonight as we are both Birkenhead girls and we really wanted to support this event in our hometown. We have been in involved in carrying out workshops with young people recently with an anti-bullying message and we are always looking to put something back into the community – just like the Your Wirral fund.”

After receiving her cheque from Suzanne and Anne-Marie, Andreas Davies from the Birkenhead Central Parents’ Forum, told the audience: “This funding gives us the opportunity to stage something we’ve talked about doing for years, but which has never been financially possible. I’d urge other community and voluntary groups who need grants to find out more and get their applications in. Compared to other applications, the process for this one is really easy and the staff are very helpful.”

Closing out the launch event, Wirral’s Mayor, Cllr. Phil Gilchrist, said: “Every now and again something like this fund comes along that makes things just that little bit easier for people who work to do good in their community and frees them up to get on with that work. I wish everyone who will be applying good luck.”

Your Wirral is a fund jointly administered by Wirral Council and Wirral Partnership Homes and is a legacy of the transfer, two years ago, of the Council’s housing stock to residential social landlords. With that transfer came a commitment from social landlords to invest in improvements to the borough’s social housing stock over the next seven years, and to establishing a community fund for use across the whole of Wirral community.

Cllr. George Davies, Council Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Safety, and Brian Simpson, Chief Executive of Wirral Partnership Homes, are both part of the Joint Working Group that is implementing the Your Wirral fund and both spoke at last night’s launch.

George Davies said: “Your Wirral provides an exciting opportunity for local community and voluntary groups to get much-needed financial support for them to improve, update or expand their activities. Unlike other such funds, this one is not limited to a geographical area or a particular type of group, this is open to everyone.”

Brian Simpson added: “We are delighted to be part of this exciting partnership, which will undoubtedly be of massive benefit to a wide cross-section of the Wirral community. We’ve tried to make it as straightforward as possible for groups to apply for a grant and we look forward to receiving lots of applications very soon as we want to see the money spent on good causes.”

To find out more about Your Wirral, people should contact 0151 691 8349 or email yourwirral@wirral.gov.uk.

Click here to go to the Your Wirral page