Our network body ACRE is aware of a future government grant fund that may be of interest to rural community groups
In March, the Minister for Rural Affairs Robbie Moore MP announced the government’s intention to establish a new grant fund, “creating and enhancing […] green spaces at the very heart of rural communities to preserve and protect their essential character”.
Up to £7 million will be available to rural community groups to fund projects that aim to create, restore, and enhance green spaces.
It is envisaged that funds will be available for capital expenditure such as landscaping, planting, installation of natural play facilities, paths and seating.
Richard Quallington, ACRE’s Executive Director said, “We welcome the government’s commitment to supporting rural communities so they can make the most of green spaces. The fund has the potential to support a wide range of initiatives that contribute to Net Zero and biodiversity net gain, as well as improving the health and wellbeing of local residents.
We know from our experience of administering recent grants to village halls that the availability of capital funding can catalyse new projects, many of which have had an environmental focus. We stand ready to support this new scheme.”
Rural community groups interested in the fund are encouraged to register their details with ACRE so they can receive more information about the fund when this becomes available. Click here.
An Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) is a portable life-saving gadget that can zap someone’s heart back to its normal rhythm if it suddenly stops beating. It works by checking the person’s heart rhythm and giving them a shock if necessary. Using an AED before the ambulance shows up can significantly increase someone’s chance of survival.
We know through organising Essential Life Saving Skills workshops with British Red Cross the difference they can make to Berkshire’s rural communities so we thought we’d pull together a brief article on where you can find funding to support your community installing one.
AEDdonate offer support to help you fund, maintain, and register your public access defibrillator.https://www.aeddonate.org.uk/apply-for-funding/ – £400 towards a defibrillator anywhere in the UK
Defibrillator funding for community spaces across England The Department of Health and Social Care is currently running a £1 million match funded Community Automated External Defibrillators Fund, aimed at increasing the number of AEDs in public places where they are most needed and to help save lives: https://www.defibgrant.co.uk/
The number of people surviving cardiac arrests outside of a hospital is 10.8%, which is the highest level it’s ever been and is twice the rate that it was a decade ago. London Hearts help fund defibrillators throughout the UK: https://londonhearts.org/
Berkshire Heart Foundation – opens again in September 2024. A limited number of funded defibrillators are available in each annual funding cycle. Applications will be reviewed monthly against a set of criteria so awards can be made to communities that need them most. Areas prioritised include those with fewer registered defibrillators and communities where local health needs indicate a higher risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. – https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/defibrillators/apply-for-a-free-defibrillator-for-your-community
Barchester’s Charitable Foundation is a registered charity that helps older people and adults with a disability across England, Scotland & Wales. Our focus is on connecting or re-connecting people with others in their local community, and we support applications that combat loneliness and enable people to be active and engaged.
We help small community groups and local charities with activities, outings, equipment and materials for members/service users. Our grants range from £100 up to £2,500. Before starting the application, make sure to have a cost breakdown/budget and your latest annual accounts ready to upload.
We do not have a formal definition for a small charity, but if a charity has financial reserves in the hundreds of thousands or millions, it is very unlikely that we would be able to help.
We help groups with:
Activity projects
Equipment and materials for use by members
Member transport
Day trips, outings and group holidays in the UK
Our grants for groups range from £100 up to £2,500. It takes us up to 10 weeks to process an application.
Grants are available for voluntary groups, social enterprises, and other not-for-profit organisations to deliver cycling projects and activities across England (outside of London) for people who do not normally cycle. Application deadline: 25 June 2024
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The Treebeard Trust is a charitable foundation supporting transformational initiatives that have the potential to create a healthier planet and fairer society. We try to invest time as well as money. We advocate on behalf of causes we are passionate about and try to support our partners, by amplifying their work, or by providing advice, connections or simply a general sounding board. If you think your organisation might be a good fit for the trust, visit our website for more info.
Applications re-open in May 2024. We award grants towards projects that make improvements to community facilities and the natural environment. Grants are for projects by constituted, not-for-profit organisations and local authorities that are located near a qualifying Veolia site in England.
Applications accepted on a rolling basis. The TCV Chestnut Fund grant scheme has been designed to support grassroots community groups and initiatives wanting to deliver practical volunteering that improves the natural physical environment and better connections between people and green spaces. Groups must be members of the TCV Community Network prior to applying. Start-Up grants are for groups who have little or no money when they are first set up and are available to groups in their first year of existence. The grant will enable them to begin practical work and will cover administrative expenses, e.g. insurance fees, postage, publicity or hire of meeting rooms. Maximum grant is £200. Support grants are for existing groups who have little or no money for tools, equipment and training. Maximum grant is £500.
About Us: SPAR is launching its third £100,000 Community Cashback scheme.Our grant scheme is aimed at supporting and giving back to the communities that we serve. Criteria: Local voluntary or community organisations and charities. Grant Size: up to £10,000 Deadline for applications: 22 May 2024
Find out more about the SPAR £100k Community Cashback
About Us: The University of Reading’s Community Engagement Fund (CEF) sets aside a total of £30,000 every year to support local charities and community groups’ projects across the Thames Valley region. Criteria: Local charities and community groups’ projects Grant Size: The Community Engagement Fund provides one-off, small awards (usually around £1,000 per year), as well as larger awards (up to a maximum of £10,000 per year) on a one-off or multi-year basis, depending on the project. Deadline for applications: 30 June 2024
About Us: Eden Projects is inviting communities to tell them how the act of sharing supports their community including their plans for sharing food on The Big Lunch weekend on 1-2 June. Award: The community receiving the award will receive a specially designed The Big Lunch Sharing Table made by the people at City & Guilds, plus funds towards their community projects and ideas, and a hamper of food and resources for a Big Lunch that are together worth £5,000. Three finalists will each receive a hamper of goodies to support them to have a Big Lunch, and £500 towards their project or idea to support the local community. Deadline for applications: 9am, Monday 20 May 2024.
This scheme supports local charities, sports clubs and good causes across the country. They have 30 offices across the UK that will each make a donation of up to 6,000 every quarter to those local organisations who are the lifeblood of our communities. Smaller donations are also available.
The Women’s Health Community Fund is designed to support small, grassroots organisations and community groups to deliver health information and support to women, girls and people from underrepresented groups.
Deadline: 19-05-2024
Thank you to Berkshire CVS’s for the information contained in this article – Slough CVS, Wokingham & Bracknell InVOLve and West Berkshire Volunteer Centre.
Have you heard of a Rural Exception Site? These were originally introduced in 1991 as a mechanism for delivering affordable homes on small plots of rural land that would not otherwise be granted permission for housing development.
An exception site is literally an exception in planning terms. It allows for planning permission to be granted on land that would not normally be granted planning permission, possibly due to contraints like Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Green Belt, or simply because it is outside the settlement envelope or boundary of the village. Almost all exception sites are adjacent to a settlement boundary, as land within the boundary often has development value. It is this very fact of not having development value that makes the land more affordable for affordable housing development.
Our Rural Housing Enablers (RHEs) are keen to hear from Berkshire parish councils or rural community groups that think there may be a housing need in their village or parish. They have recently produced a Developing New Affordable Housing in Rural Exception Sites guide which can be found here.
Our RHEs can help groups and parish councils plot a route through the various processes and help put them in touch with others who might need to become involved.
“Building the homes people need brings vitality to rural communities and helps boost the rural economy at this difficult time,” our CEO Tim Parry observed. “This project helps rural communities in Berkshire carry out a housing needs survey and identify potential sites. We have already engaged with eight rural communities looking for advice and guidance about affordable housing and we have two housing needs surveys in the pipeline. Any rural community interested in exploring their options for meeting the local need for affordable housing should contact our Rural Housing Enablers at the earliest opportunity.”
Phillip Vincent, Public Affairs and Communications Manager from out national body Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE), blogs ahead of Village Halls Week which is set to return for the seventh year running and challenge community buildings to consider how they can save energy and support environmental initiatives that help with Net Zero.
With scientific warnings of the climate crisis mounting and governments and international institutions scrabbling in search of grand solutions, it’s easy to feel powerless to act in the face of great threats to our way of life, and that of future generations.
But as much as bold decisions are needed regarding the global management of the Earth’s resources and the carbon emitted into the atmosphere, little will happen unless there is action on the ground.
Rural communities have great potential to be pioneers in the local battle for Net Zero. This is likely to include adopting more sustainable agricultural practices, welcoming renewable energy generation, improving the energy efficiency of older buildings and reducing the need for people to travel by utilising digital technology. Mitigation too is needed to blunt the consequences of climate change such as flooding and wildfires.
Village halls, like parish councils, are one of very few institutions embedded in nearly every corner of rural England. Hosting a wide range of activities, events, groups, and services, they have great reach into communities. Many have been used as a place of refuge during extreme weather events. And as the Post Office Horizon scandal has recently brought to light, they are sometimes venues where radical community activism begins!
The humble village hall is therefore surprisingly well placed to be a catalyst for environmental action. Village Halls Week 2024 will consider how this can happen. It will look at what some halls are already doing to serve as inspiration, and it will provide an opportunity for others to hold events and reach out to residents to see what might work locally for them.
A highlight of this year’s campaign will be the publication of a Net Zero Design Guide for Village & Community Halls produced by stagg architects on behalf of ACRE.
Typically, village halls are older buildings which can be off the gas grid. Some date back over 100 years. Many have been vulnerable to energy price shocks over the past couple of years with some groups spending over half of their income keeping the building warm at the peak of the crisis.
On this basis, a logical, and much needed starting point for village hall groups interested in ‘going green’ is making improvements to their building to reduce the amount of energy they consume as well as their bills.
The guidance set to be launched via a livestream features several halls in Cumbria, Lancashire, Buckinghamshire, Dorset and Somerset which have done just that. Work undertaken by these halls include improving insulation, upgrading heating systems and even generating their own energy. They demonstrate that whilst there’s no one size fits all solution, there are many take home lessons from their experiences with regards to project planning, involving the wider community, fundraising, and working with technical experts and contractors.
Connecting Communities in Berkshire 