THREE north Pembrokeshire charities are celebrating securing a total of £30,000 in funding form the Big Lottery Fund.

It was announced last week that Cwm Arian Renewable Energy Ltd, Fishguard and Goodwick Rugby Football Club and Fishguard Bay Yacht Club have all been awarded £10,000 each.

Cwm Arian Renewable Energy Ltd is a community benefit society, based in Hermon working around awareness raising and practical projects in the fields of sustainability and environmental protection.

The £10,000 lottery funding will be used as match funding to refurbish Garej y Sgwar, a building and plot central to Hermon.

The grant will fund furniture, storage, painting, decorating, external seating and recording equipment.

"We're delighted to have been granted the lottery award," said co-ordinator Holly Cross. "We are waiting for further guarantees of funding and we'll be releasing more information very soon about the project in Hermon, which the award from the Lottery will help us bring to life."

Fishguard and Goodwick Rugby Football Club will use their £10,000 to refurbish a newly-built extension to create an additional community space, part funding flooring, a disabled toilet, tables and chairs and AV equipment.

"The club is fairly ecstatic about the grant and very grateful," said treasurer, Dave Leighton.

"It's going to help us to advance the community sports component in the area. We've doubled our usable space and are working with other sports clubs. The building is now being used a community sports venue and is becoming quite a focal point for Fishguard."

Fishguard Bay Yacht Club Fishguard Bay Yacht Club will use the grant to refurbish the toilets and improve accessibility for users of the Clubhouse. This grant for £10,000 will fund building, plumbing electric and labour costs.

"We are delighted," said club secretary, Gail Strawbridge. "It will be a huge boost to our funds towards refurbishing the changing area. We are working to keep up our junior sailing and we are attracting Welsh national sailing squads to the area for training. This will prove useful for attracting them back."

Big Lottery grants of between £300 to £10,000 have gone out to 71 communities in Wales from the National Lottery Awards for All programme for community groups.

"The Big Lottery Fund is committed to offering the funding which communities really need, and the only way to know that for sure is to ask them," said Gareth Williams National Lottery Awards for All funding manager.

"It's great to see projects coming through which are taking this seriously and are genuinely putting the people who will use the project right at the heart of designing it. We are even more impressed when they will be involved in delivering the project as well."