A WINSFORD community centre is set to hit the small screen in a bid to win £50,000 to keep the good work going.

St Andrew’s Methodist Church community centre in Dingle Lane will go head-to-head with seven other groups from the north west to win a share of the £250,000 Big Lottery Fund money in The People’s Millions TV contest.

The centre – which hosts everything from Brownies, mums and tots, Weightwatchers and line dancing, through to coffee mornings, Christmas charity lunches and funeral teas – desperately needs a new kitchen if it is to keep supplying such services.

Having been built 33-years ago, the room needs to be extended and updated with new appliances, while two ‘store’ rooms need to be cleared out and made usable once more.

The centre has no disabled or baby change facilities Fundraising secretary Linda Reeve said: “The kitchen has to be done, it’s past its self-by date, its pokey, badly organised and will probably fail its hygiene test next year.

“Without it we simply won’t be able to house most of our groups, so many of them depend on the kitchen. We work really hard here to raise funds but with all the hard work and goodwill in the world, there’s no way we would ever be able to raise enough for the work that needs doing.

“The building has had a lot of use but it’s just not up to purpose anymore. We try to provide the best service we can to the town and we have fantastic support but the centre really needs to be modernised.”

The TV contest will see two projects go head-to-head on Granada Reports each night in the week of November 23 to 27. The eight schemes will make their case for the public’s vote to win the cash, before the five winners are decided in a phone vote.

Filming crews will be descending on the community centre on Wednesday, November 11, and it will be shown on Thursday, November 26.

Telephone voting lines will open at 9am on the day the projects are due to appear on ITV and winners will be announced the following day.