LGBT Isaac Hitchen project in Preston awarded £450,000

A Lancashire centre for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT) has been awarded £450,000 by the Big Lottery Reaching Communities Fund.

The Isaac Hitchen project in Preston, run by the Lancashire LGBT Centre, will use the money to pay for extra staff.

Four people will be employed over the next three years to work with volunteers to support their local gay communities.

Chair Debs Bradshaw said it was "the start of things to come".

She added: "This project is a massive achievement which has been a long time in coming.

"LGBT communities in Lancashire are often isolated. They have to travel to Blackpool or Manchester to meet groups of people and feel comfortable.

"A more visible, more confident and more involved LGBT community will benefit all the people of Lancashire."

The Isaac Hitchen project is named in memory of a man who was hanged at Lancaster in 1806 for being gay and refusing to betray his friends.