Lottery is bad luck to charities

Medical research charities estimate that they will lose Pounds 10-18 million in their first year of competition with the National Lottery. Their hopes were dashed this week that they would receive any funding from the National Lottery Charities Board, which distributes some of the proceeds.

Precise figures about research charity losses will not be known until they have all reached their year end and submitted their accounts.

But Diana Garnham, of the Association of Medical Research Charities, said: "Some charities have been reporting to us that their income is down 10-20 per cent on last year. Charities that have lotteries are reporting a much bigger drop."

The Cancer Research Campaign says its attempt to launch a rival scratch card lottery has not worked, with cards lying unsold in the shops.

The Charities Board this week announced its call for applications for its first round of funding, worth Pounds 150 million. Categories worth funding had been voted on by about 4,000 voluntary organisations and charities. The board decided to focus on the poor and the disadvantaged.

Academic research had been voted "fairly low" in priority and research and development in technology "fairly high".

Timothy Hornsby, chief executive of the board, said that medical research could still win money if applications were "more imaginative" than usual and targeted the poor.

The CRC said that it would "test the water" with an application for research into children.

University sport did much better than university research from the announcement of the second round of funding from the Lottery Sports Council. The council awarded its biggest grant to the University of Bath - Pounds 2.66 million for building a multi-sport village. The university claimed that its win would place it "at the forefront of universities in terms of the quality of sports facilities". It plans to build an Olympic standard swimming pool to add to its eight-lane athletics track, all-weather hockey area and eight-court outdoor tennis centre.

Other winners from the Sports Council include Truro College in Cornwall, which won Pounds 592,000; Sandown Court Community College in Tunbridge Wells, Pounds 367,000; and Hills Road sixth form college in Cambridge, Pounds 7,000.

The deadline for applications to the charities board is August 1.