Breathing Places
Overview
Any voluntary or community sector organisation with experience of working the natural environment, or working in partnership with an organisation with this experience can apply for a Lottery funded Breathing Places grant.
The Big Lottery Fund has committed £5 million to the Breathing Places grants programme to help develop existing breathing places or create new ones. We want this funding to have a real impact on the way communities think about and use the environment around them. It will, I hope, also raise the public’s awareness of the benefits that Lottery funding can bring.
A wide range of grants is available from the Big Lottery Fund of between £300 and £10,000 for improving or creating a public space – which can be anything from a community forest, park, local nature reserve or community garden – but it must be open to the public.
The £5 million available through the Lottery Breathing Places grants programme, from June 2006 to March 2007, delivers grants through two funding strands.
The first strand which has £1 million available in grants to voluntary and community organisations, parish, town, and community councils. It is available for existing activities that support community involvement in transforming their local environment. The grants awarded during phase one are mainly for revenue costs with grants being awarded in October 2006.
The second strand aims to distribute £4 million to a wider range of organisations – including schools – for new projects that make physical improvements to the local environment. The grants awarded during phase two will be mainly for capital costs. More details will be available from the Big Lottery Fund and BBC website nearer the time.
Breathing Places is inspired by the pioneering work of the Victorian horticulturalist and philanthropist, J.C. Loudon. He drew up a radical plan for London to enable everybody to have a green space no more than a quarter of mile from their home, whatever their status. He called these green places ‘breathing places’.
How to Apply
Existing Breathing Places grant holders were asked to register their interest in applying for a further small grant by the end of December 2008. Application materials were sent out in early January 2009 to those who registered their interest.
The deadline for receipt of completed applications was noon on Friday 6 February 2009.
It is not known if the programme will reopen to applications but our guess is it may do so for Spring 2010.