Lottery pounds 9bn going to aid five causes

JOHN MAJOR yesterday pledged pounds 9bn from the national lottery for five good causes, writes Martin Whitfield.

About pounds 1.8bn is expected in the next six years to be spent in each area - existing heritage, sports and arts, charities and the celebration of the end of the century.

'The combination of millionaire winners and huge benefits to good causes is immensely attractive,' he told a conference to celebrate the 10th anniversary of English Heritage. He said none of the money would be under government control and it would not replace existing public expenditure.

At the same conference the chairman of English Heritage, Jocelyn Stevens, warned that the large-scale disposal of government buildings and the financial crisis of the Church of England posed the two greatest dangers to heritage. He said the Ministry of Defence owned more than 700 listed buildings and had identified 114 to be sold.

The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, south-east London, and the 18th-century naval dockyards at Plymouth, which are to be sold, were examples of buildings that could not be left to the dictates of the market place.

English Heritage has organised a conference of all the Church of England's archdeacons to consider the future of the country's 13,000 listed churches. The Church has closed one church a week for the past 26 years.

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