It won't be you - Solihull Council lottery axed weeks winning support

Plans for a Solihull Council-run lottery - backed by members just a few weeks ago - have already been scrapped. The lottery would have had a potential £25,000 jackpot with estimates it could have raised up to £85,000 for community groups and organisations.

But an audit committee meeting heard the project had been axed amid a freeze on non-essential spending to help meet a forecast £6.8 million deficit for this financial year. Coun Leslie Kaye - a vocal opponent of the lottery - said: “A freeze in non-essential spending was introduced in August.

“I’m wondering how far reaching and thorough this freeze is? I ask because I’m aware the council is setting up a community lottery which seems to involve a lot of councillor effort, officer effort, advertising and such for what is truly an insignificant amount of money.”

READ MORE: 'Government funding is not adequate' leader of council tackling budget deficit warns

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Director of resources Andrew Felton replied: “There was an internal decision that it (the lottery) is not progressing for exactly the reasons you have highlighted.” He said the lottery had been “very laudable in terms of what it was trying to achieve”, to raise money for good causes.

“If voluntary organisations want to follow that up they have the ability to do that without the council co-coordinating it for them,” he said. “There are other mechanisms they can use to fundraise.

“That (the lottery) will not be progressing - I can give assurance around that.” In September, at a meeting of the stronger communities and neighbourhood services scrutiny board, councillors voted by a majority in favour of setting up the lottery.

More than 100 local authorities already run a lottery scheme and the proposal had been for Solihull’s to be run along similar lines. The lottery would likely have seen players select a line made up of six numbers with prizes awarded forr the number of matched numbers, and a top prize of potentially around £25,0000 for players matching all six numbers.

It had been proposed lottery tickets be sold online at a cost of £1 each with proceeds split between good causes, an external lottery manager running the scheme, prize money and Solihull Council to cover costs and create a central pot to be distributed.