Nottingham wins lottery bid for babies and children

Babies and toddlers are set to benefit from the cash Credit: Peter Byrne/PA

Millons of pounds of lottery money is to be awarded to Nottingham over the next 10 years to improve the lives of the city’s babies and toddlers.

Nottingham’s bid for £45m from the Big Lottery Fund as part of its A Better Start programme began in 2013, with partner organisations including Nottingham CityCare Partnership (CityCare), Nottingham City Council and Nottingham CVS coming together to create a vision for improving the life experiences of the city’s nought to three-year-olds.

The bid called Small Steps Big Changes was selected as one of five successful bids across England sharing £215 million from the Big Lottery Fund.

The cash will be used for a wide range of programmes, from breast feeding support classes, to nutrition initiatives, supported book-gifting, parent-child relationship programmes, infant massage classes and learning-through-play schemes in the home.