A Knutsford community is to receive a £250,000 boost with Big Lottery Fund cash to help residents have better access to fresh fruit and vegetables, and provide allotment space.

The award provides funding for a further five years to expand a Healthy Living activity at St John's Wood Community Centre in Longridge. The Healthy Living Network project  was set up by Macclesfield Borough Council four years ago to explore new ways of working to improve the health and well-being of the residents, including running cooking sessions for different age groups.

The latest wave of funding will be used to explore and introduce new ways to help the local community access fruit and vegetables and to develop an allotment area. The aims include increasing awareness of food, its origins and production, and healthy eating. The scheme will link in with an existing project, GROW, targeting people with mental and learning disabilities, and which helps older people with gardening.

The funding is part of a £7 million allocation to 27 schemes in the North West Healthy Living Network. The Longridge and Shaw Heath area was chosen because of figures which show only 13 per cent of young people eat fresh fruit daily compared with a 44% national average. There was also concern about healthy lifestyles and wider rural isolation.

Dave Kidd, MBC's Service Manager for Health Improvement, says: "The scheme tackles healthy eating, improved mental well-being, and encouraging people to be more physically active. We now need to look for appropriate sites for the allotment. The great feature of this project is that it links together food awareness and education with the old and young."

A new co-ordinator will need to be recruited to develop and monitor the GROW food/allotment project, work with local residents and organise training for volunteers.

Ultimately, the aim of the project is to build in a sustainable operation, for example,   a local co-operative that would become a self-funding service, or explore the opportunity to work with the agricultural or private sectors to create a joint partnership venture.