London given more lottery cash than any other region

London has emerged as the runaway winner from national lottery handouts, with five local authorities in the capital getting the greatest returns from the cash pot for good causes, according to figures released yesterday.

The £628m cost of the Millennium Dome project ensured that £3,216 has been spent for every person in Greenwich, putting it top of the list of 434 authorities.

Multimillion-pound spending on high-profile London projects such as the Royal Opera House, the Sadler's Wells theatre and the British Museum helped four boroughs in the capital become the only other areas to top the £1,000 per head spending mark.

Regional centres, including Manchester, Edinburgh and Newcastle upon Tyne, were also big winners after benefiting from windfalls for costly projects.

However, the complexity of the bidding process and the difficulty of part-funding major capital projects badly affected the opportunities for small rural districts to win lottery funds, the figures showed.

Hart, a prosperous area of Hampshire, secured lottery grants of only £1.4m, an average of £16.42 per head of population putting it at the bottom of the handout league. The national average was £191.33.

Robert Benford, the Conservative leader of Hart District Council, said the complexity of bids had put off volunteers. "The system doesn't seem to be up to dealing with small projects," he said.

"We had an extension to a village hall and it was an absolute nightmare; the treasurer tore his hair out. When they asked if we wanted to put air conditioning in, we thought about it and decided it was too difficult. It never got on to the drawing board, let alone off it."

The Government admitted last year that deprived communities were not getting their fair share and should get more help when applying for funds.

Funding bodies have been accused of diverting lottery money to "elitist" projects such as the Royal Opera House. London currently receives about one quarter of the more than £12bn distributed for good causes pot since the lottery began in November 1994.

The author of the latest analysis, the information services company j4b, said an even greater proportion could go to London if a new lottery game was set up to fund a possible Olympics bid. Tessa Jowell, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, has opened discussions with Camelot about the possibility of launching a special game.

The company's first quarterly index of all 434 local authority areas was compiled using figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the 2001 census.

Most money went to Greenwich where spending on the Dome and a grant for the National Maritime Museum took the total to more than £690m.

Westminster, the City of London, Camden and Islington, followed as the next biggest recipients per head of population with Newcastle upon Tyne sixth, the biggest winner outside London.

Paul Rubinstein, the head of culture at Newcastle City Council, said: "You can put forward 100 bids but if you get only get two, it's a waste of effort. The key is careful strategic planning and we're not bad in this area."

Leeds, the second largest local authority area, was ranked only 133rd, lower than the national average with £157.83 spent per person.

A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport accepted that some authorities were likely to benefit over others but said it was working on its review to help smaller towns and communities win more funding.

A lottery winner ...

WESTMINSTER, LONDON
Westminster was ranked second on the national list with its residents receiving, on average, £2,925 per head from the lottery good causes pot. The borough received more than £530m. The largest grant was £55m to restore the Royal Opera House, £20m went to the Albert Hall and £9m helped build two bridges..

... and loser

HART, HAMPSHIRE
Hart, a picturesque and wealthy district in north-east Hampshire, got a total of 60 awards, from £313,000 to develop a cricket complex to £500 for a plaque for a listed building. In all, the area has received nearly £1.4m for 60 projects, the equivalent to £16.42 a head for its 83,000 residents, putting it in 434th place, last on the list.