`Big Issue' wins lottery cash

The Arts Council yesterday made the first cash allocations under its pounds 19m Arts for Everyone scheme, and left sellers of the Big Issue magazine for the homeless pounds 125,000 better off with a grant for the Big Issue Video Training Unit to teach them film- and video making.

This was the first of four awards under the lottery-funded scheme to be made over the next two years. Acting Arts Council secretary-general, Graham Devlin, said the first phase of the scheme could not be geographically fair because applicants were chosen strictly on merit. Nottingham and Suffolk did particularly well with several major grants: Suffolk Dance won pounds 390,000, Wingfield Arts, of mid-Suffolk, received pounds 199,000, Nottinghamshire County Council got pounds 399,000, and Nottingham Playhouse pounds 500,000.