AN MP is demanding an explanation after a lottery grant was awarded to one Hampshire hospice while another was turned down.

The New Opportunities Fund (NOF) has rejected a £260,000 application from Oakhaven Hospice, Lymington, but approved a £644,000 payment to Naomi House Children's Hospice, near Winchester.

It follows a row last year over the way in which money raised by the lottery was being shared out.

New Forest West MP Desmond Swayne said: "The most extraordinary political decisions seem to be made in some instances. Oakhaven Hospice is just the sort of good cause many people think the lottery is for, but those who buy the tickets don't seem to have their concerns reflected in the decisions that are made."

The grant given to Naomi House will help meet the annual £1.7m cost of supporting terminally-ill children from Hampshire and six other counties. Mr Swayne added: "I'm glad Naomi House's application has been approved. There's probably a perfectly good reason why it's received such a large sum, but I'm very disappointed that Oakhaven's application has been turned down and would like to know the reason why."

Oakhaven's bid was rejected on the grounds of "insufficient evidence of need", but an NOF spokeswoman refused to elaborate. She said: "We're not allowed to say why we have not made an allocation. Applications are made in confidence and we must respect that. If we went public on why an application had been turned out it might affect funding bids the applicant had made to other organisations."

The grant sought by Oakhaven would have paid for a specialist nurse and a part-time consultant in palliative medicine.

They would have worked closely with district nurses and GPs to improve the quality of care for terminally-ill patients being treated in community hospitals, nursing homes and their own homes.

Kara Bishop, Oakhaven's chief executive, said: "Applying for a lottery grant is an incredibly time-consuming process. Our bid ran to 15,000 words and we had high hopes of success. Naomi House does tremendously valuable work, but we are very disappointed that we will not be able to do very important work with adults."