£43,000 grant refusal fails to unseat chair arch plan

COUNCIL millennium officer Roger Bowen has promised the project to build a monument to the furniture-making heritage of High Wycombe is "not dead and buried"; despite its failure to secure a grant.

Backers of the project to build a chair arch in the town were left disappointed on Monday when Culture Secretary Chris Smith announced the Millennium Commission's funding awards.

The commission turned down an application for £43,000 to help build the permanent chair arch at the bottom of Marlow Hill.

It would be designed as a "gateway to the town" in the image of other historic, temporary chair arches which have been built since Victorian times.

High Wycombe's millennium landmark committee; which includes representatives from the Bucks Free Press, local councils and furniture firms around High Wycombe; must now look elsewhere for funds if the chair arch project is to go ahead.

Mr Bowen, a Wycombe District Council officer who sits on the committee, believes money could be found from the Arts Lottery Fund to help pay for the project.

He said: "The plan for a chair arch is definitely not dead and buried.

"The landmark committee meets next week and we are already looking to other sources for funding. We might have to put another twist to the project but I remain optimistic that it could still go ahead."

There was better news, though, for a number of other applications when the awards were announced.

Two projects backed by Wycombe District Council to have won funding are a community musical celebrating the history of Marlow and A Day in the Life, which involves a variety of people around High Wycombe making a record of one day in their life during the first six months of the year 2000.

The total value of grants awarded to the district council topped £40,000.

Buckinghamshire County Council was awarded nearly £24,000 for its Buckinghamshire Millennium Exhibition.

The County Museum is to put together an exhibition mounted in the Buckinghamshire Art Gallery where 100 members of the public, one for each year of the 20th century, will contribute items.

The Chiltern Open Air Museum, which received a £20,000 grant, is to build a fully working home to show visitors in the future how we lived at the start of the millennium.

The Millennium Youth Games programme for Bucks, Berkshire and Oxfordshire was boosted by an award. The youth games will involve around 250,000 children, aged up to 15 years, in 38 local events across the country.

There was also good news for Thame, in Oxfordshire, after the Thame in 2000 project was awarded £30,000.

The money will allow groups to run artistic, educational, historical, musical, religious and sporting events.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.