MARLBOROUGH'S Gambian twin town of Gunjur is likely to get its £1.5 million piped water project within the next year to 18 months after the Marlborough Brandt Group helped secure £200,000 worth of grants for it and other vital schemes.

Tom Skitt, the group's director, has returned from The Gambia with news that the project is in the bag. He said: "This is a turning point in Marlborough's links with Gunjur. The water project has been foremost in our minds for the last few years and we have had a few false starts but now it looks like becoming a reality very soon."

The group's Gambian partner, the Trust Agency for Rural Development or TARUD, has been awarded £200,000 to be spent over the next three years on the water project and other schemes to improve the lot of the people of the village of Gunjur.

TARUD was set up with the help of the Marlborough Brandt Group and it has recently been given a boost with a new board of trustees. Mr Skitt called the latest grants from the Gambian government and various international charities as a major breakthrough.

He said: "This is the first time that TARUD has raised this scale of funding for new development projects in The Gambia. It is just the result that the MBG has been working for over the last 20 years, and particularly timely in our 20th anniversary year."

The grants include £70,000 over four years for malaria prevention from the prestigious Bill Gates Foundation, £30,000 over two years for women's development and training from Oxfam, and it is hoped that a grant for £40,000 will shortly be forthcoming over three years for HIV/AIDS advice and prevention from the Medical Research Council, which has laboratories in The Gambia. In addition, TARUD will now be able to use a further grant of £75,000 over three years from the Lotto-supported Community Fund to help Gunjur prepare for the arrival of piped water in the village.

Mr Skitt said: "The Gambian Government has finally found the major funding it needs to introduce the piped water system that the Brandt Group has been working on for so long."

But the new money does not mean that the input from Marlborough people is not still needed or appreciated. Funding is still required for skills training and to keep the new pre-school running.

Mr Skitt was able to report, on his recent return that the pre-school, funded by the Brandt Group, is now virtually complete and ready for its first intake of pupils.

Mr Skitt said: "It is great that the youngsters of Gunjur will now have their own custom-built pre-school building, instead of having to share the inadequate old community centre they have been in for several years now. Marlborough set up the pre-school and can now be proud that its first very own building will be opened soon."

Despite the new developments in Gunjur, much remains to be done to bring the community into the 21st century. It still has no electricity and lacks other facilities that the western world takes for granted. The £1.5 million water project will help around 12,000 people living in Gunjur and its outskirts. Mr Skitt said: "There will always be work for the Brandt Group to do. We don't want to give the impression that it is all finished.'

"The Brandt Group was set up as a friendship link and we want to continue the link for as long as possible."