Posted on 11th Feb
A new grant fund has been announced with the aim of working with town and parish councils to help make communities better places to live, work and visit.
A total of £200,000 is available to fund projects that will further improve the cleanliness and appearance of the local environment, as Newark and Sherwood District Council looks to continue to build on the success of its Cleaner, Safer, Greener campaign.
Through the campaign the council has led multi-agency Days of Action across the district, delivered a free tree planting scheme for residents and recruited four new Community Protection Officers to work with Police colleagues to further address anti-social behaviour and environmental crime.
Crime and anti-social behaviour is down across Newark and Sherwood and Newark was recently awarded a special award in retaining its Gold Status in last year’s East Midlands in Bloom competition of the ‘least-littered’ environment in the East Midlands.
The fund has been designed to build on those achievements in partnership with town and parish councils across Newark and Sherwood who want to develop schemes which will further enable the district to become cleaner, safer and greener.
There will be two rounds of grant allocations each year and each round will be themed. The 2020 theme is greener, giving a financial boost to projects which deliver environmental benefits.
A panel of Newark and Sherwood District councillors will determine which projects are granted the money. The maximum allocation of funds is £20,000 and the district council will contribute up to 50% of the total project cost.
David Lloyd, leader of the council, said: “This grant fund is the perfect opportunity for parish and town councils to get some green changes made to their areas. Whilst the Council has already done a great deal to make Newark and Sherwood Cleaner, Safer and Greener, I believe the greener element is probably the one where we would acknowledge we can and will do more. This money has the potential make a huge difference to making our district greener and I look forward to working with our communities as we do so.”
Greener projects which could be eligible include replacing a boiler in a village hall, PV units fitted to a village hall roof, over-cladding at village halls to improve insulation and energy efficiency as well as visual amenity, bee bombs – native wildflower seed balls, or improvements to community green spaces.
The first round of applications is open now and will close at 12pm, Friday 20th March.
For more information visit www.newark-sherwooddc.gov.uk/grantsandawards or email communityengagement@nsdc.info
