Greater Manchester’s community transport sector received a big boost this week after securing funding from the National Lottery’s Awards for All programme.

The project, Vehicles for Success, will enable local community transport operators to build better links with voluntary and community groups in order to provide training and support to meet their transport needs. The funding will also pay for the creation of a database of voluntary groups that hold their own vehicles, with the aim of enabling more groups to share their vehicles with others.

The funding will be managed by the Greater Manchester Community Transport Forum, the trade association for the community transport sector in Greater Manchester. The Forum is supported by GMPTE and GMCVO's Transport Resource Unit.

Neil Foley, Chair of the Forum, said: “This is a timely boost for the sector as we are aware of groups that have specific transport needs and this will give us the resources to reach out to them. The database of vehicle owning groups could enable some groups to make better use of budgets and generate additional income, which I’m sure will be very welcome in these tough times. We also hope that the project will raise the profile of the good work being carried out by community transport operators across Greater Manchester”.