UK Community Renewal Fund

Archived Adult Education/Learning Arts, culture and heritage Communities Community and neighbourhood development Community development Cultural heritage Education and learning environment Health, wellbeing and sport Information Technology Miscellaneous organisational development research Rural development social enterprise Sport and physical recreation Sustainable energy Transport, travel and tourism Un/Employed Urban development Antrim & Newtownabbey Ards & North Down Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon Belfast City Causeway Coast and Glens Derry City and Strabane England Fermanagh and Omagh Great Britain Lisburn and Castlereagh Mid and East Antrim Mid Ulster Newry, Mourne and Down Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Large (over £60,000) Medium (up to £60,000)

Track grant Notes

Overview

Investment priorities

To nurture innovative thinking and offer flexibility, projects may align with one, or deliver across several, of the following investment priorities:

Investment in skills
Investment for local business
Investment in communities and place
Supporting people into employment

There will be no ringfences applied across these themes.

90% of funding available through the UK Community Renewal Fund is revenue funding, with a small amount of capital funding. Prospective applicants should calibrate their bids accordingly. They are interested in bids that are either wholly or predominantly revenue based.

They are interested in bids that build on local insight and knowledge, and project proposals that align with long-term strategic plans for local growth, target people most in need and support community renewal. In addition, projects should show how they complement other national and local provision. A focus for this Fund is to support innovation and new ideas in these areas, investing in pilots that draw on local insights and which will help places to prepare for the introduction of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in 2022.

Who can apply

UK government will accept bids from a range of local applicants, including but not limited to universities, voluntary and community sector organisations, and umbrella business groups. Any legally constituted organisation delivering an appropriate service should feel able to submit a bid.

Contributing to our Net Zero and environmental objectives

Investment made under this Fund should be able to demonstrate the extent of contribution to net zero objectives or wider environmental considerations. Projects should be based on low or zero carbon best practice, adopt and support innovative clean tech where possible and support the growing skills and supply chains in support of Net Zero where possible. As a minimum, investment under this fund should meet the clean growth principle and must not conflict with the UK’s legal commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

To support green growth, bids should also consider how projects can work with the natural environment to achieve project objectives, and – at a minimum – consider the project’s impact on our natural assets and nature. For further information on how to take these considerations into account, see the Enabling a Natural Capital Approach (ENCA) resources.

This is not applicable to interventions focused on supporting people into employment.

Assessment of bids

Projects can be of any value up to the total allocation of £11 million for Northern Ireland. However, applicants should note that this is a competitive process, and the UK government will be looking to select a portfolio of different size projects, covering a range of themes and geographies, subject to the volume and quality of proposals received.

They recognise the importance of not only meeting their legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010 but also giving due regard to the additional equalities considerations that apply in Northern Ireland.

In addition to assessment against strategic fit and deliverability, effectiveness and efficiency considerations, Ministers can exercise discretion to meet the following additional considerations:

Ensuring a reasonable thematic split of approved projects (e.g. employment, skills, communities and place, local business)
Ensuring a fair geographical spread of approved projects across Northern Ireland
Where two or more projects are scored the same on all assessment criteria, but cannot all be funded, Ministers have the discretion to choose the project(s) they consider to be better value for money in achieving the programme’s objectives.

Additional information

A portion of the Community Renewal Fund will be reserved for capacity funding, to be allocated to local partners for preparation for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.