Lottery funding will help give wheelchair bound people access to Mid Ulster's beautiful woodland

The group will use the money to build a boardwalk so wheelchair bound people can access the woodland.

Friends of Little Woods has been running since 2022 and is staffed by 12 volunteers. It was founded by Chris and Catherine Hillcox after they realized that the amount of native woodland in the county had dramatically declined.

The group now runs education programmes to tell young people and adults about native woodland and animals found in Mid Ulster. It also promotes sustainable living through allotments.

The new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will allow us to build a 30-metre stretch of boardwalk and observation platform.

The project was piloted by a grant from Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful.

Catherine Hillcox, chair, says: “We’re delighted that The National Lottery Community Fund has recognised our work in this way. Now, thanks to National Lottery players we will be able to make Catherine’s Wood accessible to wheelchair reliant people and their carers. This is important because nationally, people reliant on wheelchairs can often be excluded from wild places.”

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.