Pembrokeshire Lottery reaches £5m business loans landmark

Dr Sarah Beynon and Andy Holcroft, of Dr Benyon's Bug Farm, join lottery manager Abigail Owens (centre)

A lottery set up to help create jobs has now loaned £5m to more than 360 businesses in west Wales.

Pembrokeshire Lottery reached the milestone after providing its first interest-free loan to Goodwick printing company Phoenix Press in 1994.

The scheme - which has created 1,700 jobs - has 7,000 players paying £1 a week for the £2,000 prize draw.

Pembrokeshire Lottery company secretary Bob Clarke said he was "delighted" at reaching the landmark.

The scheme will pay its five-millionth pound to Dr Benyon's Bug Farm, an attraction being created in St Davids by entomologist Dr Sarah Benyon.

Pembrokeshire Lottery has loaned £419,000 to 24 businesses since July 2014

Mr Clarke said: "I am delighted to see the Pembrokeshire Lottery reaching this milestone.

"As a community scheme, it was the first of its type in the UK and it remains one of the most successful self-funding, long-term economic regeneration schemes in the country."

The scheme says less than 5% of its borrowers have defaulted on their loans.

Lottery manager Abigail Owens said: "We have given out more than £2.5m in prize money as well. So, that's even more money being spent locally."

One of the businesses to have benefited from funding is Haverford West children's play centre Merlin's Magic, which needed money to cover part of its start-up costs six years ago.

Owner Matthew Brown said: "There was a big recession at the time. Many banks wouldn't even talk to us, to tell you the truth.

Merlin's Magic is one of the businesses which has been helped by the Pembrokeshire Lottery

"We were trying everywhere, we were trying to get grants. We were hitting a brick wall. There was just nothing out there to offer us."

But the firm secured a £15,000 interest-free loan from the lottery and has since returned with a second application.

"I would honestly say that without using the Pembrokeshire Lottery and having the loan from them we would never have opened Merlin's Magic," Mr Brown added.

The Pembrokeshire Lottery was the dream child of Danny Fellows, who ran the Transport and General Workers Union office in Milford Haven in 1993, at a time when jobs were being lost in the oil refineries and in wider manufacturing.

It is held every Wednesday on 102.5 FM Radio Pembrokeshire. Quarterly "superdraws" for bumper prizes were also introduced in 2014.