A GROUP set up in Ardrossan to help improve the town through funding from the Big Lottery has come in for criticism after they redacted information on a document that was publicly available.

Our Place Ardrossan Central and North East are based in Glasgow Street and have been working within the community to see what people want for Ardrossan with over £1million to be spent in the town.

Initial interviews and surveys that were undertaken pointed to improvement in Glasgow Street, more employment opportunities and development of the seafront and wasteground.

These details were published in a ‘Baseline Report’ in January 2015 and followed up with a leaflet of next steps for the funding and how they would help the local community to ensure the best for Ardrossan.

But a Freedom of Information request was sent, asking about how Our Place has chosen which groups have been funded.

It also asked what steps had been taken from the initial consultation and survey to their most recent meetings and how the views of the community have been met.

But the Big Lottery redacted a number of quotes which were included in the report – claiming that these would be redacted anyway had they known that the document was available in the public domain.

The first redacted quote said: “Growing up in Ardrossan, success was getting a girl pregnant, getting a house and claiming benefits.”

The next backs up the views of those surveyed and said: “We would like to see local businesses get a face lift - the town of Ardrossan looks terrible. There are a higher number of empty shops in the town.”

Another survey participant welcomed the arrival of Our Place and said: “I’m glad that Our Place is here for the town, there is a lot of good work already going on that needs support.”

The Ardrossan Castle Heritage Society have been the main benefactors from Our Place so far with over £50,000 going towards their Castle Carnival event for the next three years.

One resident, who asked not to be named, told the Herald: “I find it strange why The Big Lottery would find it necessary to blank out information regarding what the public want and what they say in relation to providing new leisure facilities and services which help reduce anti-social behaviour and drug and alcohol problems in Ardrossan.

“Instead they have kept in comments which meet with their preferences on how the Our Place funding should be spent.

“The Baseline Report is a document you can see in its entirety at the Our Place office so why the cover up?

“Why are the public not getting what they asked for in their initial survey?”

A spokeswoman for the Big Lottery said: “Our FOI team were unaware that this document had been made public and did not identify a link where it was publicly available to view.

“Where a document is public, we would still redact personal comments and data relating to individual people contained within it in our FOI response.

“However, the FOI response should have made it clearer as to where a full copy of the report could be obtained.”