GROUPS in Dorset have shared in a grant of more than £580,000 from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme.

A total of 70 projects around the South West have been given a boost from the scheme, which gives small grants to benefit communities and people most in need.

It includes Cowden Care Farm CIC based at Charminster which supports adults with learning disabilities and gives them the chance to learn new skills.

It receives £8,640 to deliver a programme of educational activities for parents and toddlers.

New activities will support the healthy, physical and social development of young people.

The Bridport charity Opera Circus Ltd, a performing arts company, scoops £9,150 to work with a school and a housing estate to develop community gardens in an area experiencing ‘social disadvantages’.

This aims to enhance the community environment through improving public spaces for people to socialise and grow food, working nationally and internationally on musical processes concerned with social change.

The Dorchester-based South Dorset Association of the Nation-al Trust gets £873 to buy new public address equipment to help with talks at local churches and village halls.

Over in Purbeck, the Swanage Pier Trust will use £8,069 to promote educational visits by schoolchildren, including boat tours and a resource pack for teachers.

Big Lottery Fund Deputy Director for England Tim Davies Pugh said: “The funding we are announcing will help communities across the South West make a real positive start to the new year and I am sure they will be a great success.”

For funding support and advice, call 0345 4102030.