More than £2.5million of European Union funding has been spent in Blackburn with Darwen in the last six years, it has been revealed.
Using website myeu.uk, which shows on an interactive map how much and where the EU funding was spent, the Lancashire Telegraph has broken down where every penny has been spent in the borough in the second half of the last decade.
As well as the cash, as of June 2018, the website revealed 25 nurses from the EU staff 21 hospital beds were funded through Royal Blackburn Hospital.
Brexit was back by every East Lancashire borough – 46.3 per cent of Blackburn voters backed staying in the EU while 53.7 per cent voted to leave.
Here’s a breakdown of how the money was spent in Blackburn with Darwen and how the area benefitted from it.
1. Amount: £1,206,889
Given to: Blackburn with Darwen Council
To fund: Strengthening Communities – Volunteering in Lancashire.
This cash funded 60 per cent of this project, which aimed to boost volunteering in the borough by engaging the most disadvantaged people a chance to get on a path back to work.
On the website, a council spokesman said: “We will support individuals to build personal resilience and gain practical skills thereby reducing barriers to participation, increasing the opportunities available to them, and providing long-term solutions that will reduce vulnerability.
“We will do this by introducing disadvantaged and marginalised individuals to volunteering, providing them with realistic pathways to employability through mentoring, tailored, accredited and non- accredited training, and access to volunteer placements in the voluntary, public and private sectors.”
2. Amount: £231,400
Given to: Promethean Limited
To fund: 21st Century European Classrooms project
This money was used to help develop lesson delivery software for schools and to help bridge the gap between the use of technology in and out of schools.
3. Amount: £1,861
Given to: St Stephen’s CE Primary School, Blackburn
To fund: Improving French lessons at the school.
The amount funded the entire project and enabled teachers to improve their language teaching for their pupils.
A spokesman on the website said: “The school aims to boost confidence and methodological approaches to be more in line with an up to date methods for teaching French.
“There will be one person partaking in the project and that person is to be the MFL co-coordinator for the school.
“The subject leader will in turn feed back to the other members of the teaching staff any new developments and initiatives that have arisen from the course itself.
“The school will en-devour to set up a link school whereby the pupils will be able to give a two-way exchange of culture understanding and learning.”
4. Amount: £114,121
Given to: Lancashire Council of Mosques
To fund: Building capacities for youth participation across borders
This project was used to help strengthen relationships between young people and the community they live in.
It funded volunteers from 10 different countries to implement different activities in the area in order to improve youth participation in the community.
5. Amount: £455,620
Given to: Lancashire Women’s Centres
To Fund: WorkFit Women project
The cash funded 60 per cent of this project which will provide a programme of continuous employment focussed resources, advice and guidance as well improving emotional wellbeing in order to get women back to work.
This work will directly work to address specific barriers and disadvantages that women in Lancashire are facing, including barriers to progression towards employment, in particular the impact of deprivation, multiple needs and low skills.
6. Amount: £14, 969
Given to: St Alban’s RC Primary School
To fund: From St Alban’s to France project
The EU provided all the cash for this project, which provides a high-quality foreign languages curriculum at the school £14,969 for this project as a whole.
On the website, a school spokesman said: “We want to ensure that all staff have the necessary knowledge and confidence to equip our pupils with the skills which will vastly improve their life chances and employability.
“Many of our pupils have disadvantaged backgrounds, and we want to ensure that our children see the benefits of learning a new language, and see it as an essential part of their education.”
7. Amount: £63,823
Given to: Youth Action Ltd
To fund: Volunteer for diversity and inclusion project.
The project supports volunteers to come to the UK to take part in, develop and review a range of inclusion, interfaith and intercultural projects.
These projects are aimed at bringing more inclusion to the area and breaking down barriers within communities.
8. Amount: £14,887
Given to: St Silas CE Primary School
To fund: Forever French project
On its website, it said the school has mostly children from a Pakistani and Indian heritage, and at the time of application the only other language it taught was Urdu, with one staff member being able to teach it.
A school spokesman said: “It is imperative that we now improve our staff competences in terms of language skills and methodology/pedagogy of language teaching and increase the involvement of all class teachers as none of the class teachers here have ever taught language lessons.”
8. Amount: £10,618
Given to: Blackburn College
To fund: Prácticas en otros países europeos: llave para la empleabilidad de los alumnos de Tevian project.
It helped fund placements for students studying there to go abroad to gain new skills and experiences.
9. Amount: £90,478
Given to: St Wilfrid’s Church of England Academy
To fund: Motion pictures an an exhibition project.
The academy used the funds to create a digitally based exhibition, inspired by Modest Mussorgsky’s classical music suite called “Pictures at an Exhibition”.
Historic pictures from East Lancashire were used and the school give them a new life.
This was conveyed by means of new photographs and paintings, historical and contemporary music as well as short self recorded movies.
10. Amount: £316,627
Given to: MK Illumination Ltd
To fund: TirolerInnen auf der Walz 2017 project.
The project was to promote the transfer of Tyrolean students, from northern Italy, in vocational education to European companies, giving them work experience and to improve language skills.
Students were sent to this company and trainees were able to improve their language skills, professional and social competences such as flexibility, persuasiveness and ability to handle work pressure.
11. Amount: £35,581
Given to: The Blackburn Rovers Football and Athletic Limited
To fund: To improve Association for Science Education programme
The programme focuses on the youth development phase of 16 to 18 year old apprentices in football.
The programme also seeks to enhance player progression through European input to include non-UK styles.
Also it aims to learn from other European clubs ans governing bodies in order to improve on a number of the other key development areas including vision, coaching, sport, science and medicine, and facilities.
12. Amount: £17,282
Given to: Lower Darwen Primary School
To fund: Let’s make a difference project
The project was to improve the teaching of French in the school as, at the time, there was not a language specialist within the staff numbers.
On the website, a school spokesman said: “As headteacher, my vision for my pupils is for them to experience the positive aspects of European culture and encourage diversity.
“We want to provide our staff and children with more life opportunities as well as raising the profile of French and languages across school.
“We need to ensure every child has the opportunity to hear, speak, read and write in our French lessons and provide our infant children with more language opportunities.
“We also want to provide our hearing impaired pupils with activities and techniques adapted to their needs, as they can find French lessons overwhelming.
“These courses will allow us to find new strategies and resources to help us meet every objective.”
