Inverness is one of the successful applicants

South Lanarkshire Council and Inverness in the Highlands both submitted successful bids for grants from the Millennium Commission.

Local authorities with populations of over 120,000 were eligible to bid for cash from the Urban Cultural Programme.

As many as 40 councils applied from throughout the UK, but only 19 were successful.

They will each get a slice of nearly �20m of funding from the Millennium Commission.

South Lanarkshire Council aims to use its �750,000 grant to fund 16 events celebrating the area's contributions to Scottish cultural life.

The �500,000 awarded to Inverness will go towards covering half the costs of an 18-month programme.

Cash for ideas

It includes a traditional music festival and a string of artistic events celebrating younger people's successes.

Funding to develop new art, music, animation and literature was awarded to Scottish artists in March.

Eight artists received �30,000 each from the Scottish Arts Council's Creative Scotland Awards 2004.

One winner, Zoe Irvine, was planning an opera based on telephone conversations.

The other recipients were artists Doug Cocker and Alison Watt, musicians Edward McGuire, Chick Lyall and Tom Bancroft, sculptor David Swift and playwright David Greig.

The Creative Scotland Awards were first presented in 2000 and 60 awards have been made since then, at a total cost of over �1.5m.

The funding is for artists who have a significant record of achievement and who live and work in Scotland.