Culture Secretary Karen Bradley has visited Ipswich to present a landmark lottery grant to local charity Ipswich4Family.

The historic grant was made 22 years to the month after the National Lottery launched in 1994.

The organisation received a £9,950 grant from the Big Lottery Fund – its the 500,000th grant recipient since the Lottery funding was first set up in 1994.

Mrs Bradley, who took over as Culture Secretary in the reshuffle that followed Theresa May’s arrival in Downing Street, also visited ActivLives Ipswich which helps motivate people in the area aged 45 years and above to make positive changes to their lifestyle by increasing their physical activity.

She met people taking part in the ActivLives curling competition at Whitton Sports Centre – and said it was very important that people took up sport or at least took part in activities as they get older.

“I’m all for sport for the over-45s!” Said the 46-year-old cabinet minister.

Mrs Bradley said: “It is important to realise that 95% of lottery grants are for less than £10,000 – but they are tremendously important to the organisations that receive them.

“Many of those organisations are relatively small but they are very important to the people that they support and I am really pleased to be here in Ipswich to see the kind of work that is being done here.”

Over the years there has been frustration that some efforts to get lottery funding for projects in Ipswich have been unsuccessful – and the current bid to restore Broomhill Pool is taking a long time.

But Mrs Bradley said it would be inappropriate for a politician to comment on individual lottery decisions which were taken by a team of professionals after careful consideration.