WIREDGOV

Communities across England are yesterday receiving funding from the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) to jump start detailed planning for more sustainable living.

Fuel poverty, rising food prices and scarce resources are just some of the issues in the sights of BIG’s Communities Living Sustainably programme. It aims to inspire people to adapt the way they live, work and connect together to reap financial, environmental and health gains.

The thirty projects are receiving up to £10,000 to work in partnership with local people, councils, schools, businesses, and voluntary groups to draw up detailed plans for how their community can become greener.

Later in the year, ten of the schemes will be chosen to receive up to £1 million to deliver their ideas. The learning gained from the ten funded projects over a five-year period will be shared with other communities in England to inform and influence others on how communities can become more sustainable.

The Friends Centre in Brighton will be using its grant of £9,912 to plan how they will support the City’s Sustainability Strategy for tackling climate change. The project plans include helping people to ‘green’ their homes and businesses by reducing fuel use and cost, establishing community gardens for local food growing as well as developing neighbour networks to provide support during extreme weather conditions and flooding. It also aims to build sustainable energy solutions within communities such as wind turbines and solar power as well as developing green skills, jobs and enterprises with the community.

The Bulmer Foundation will be leading a partnership in Herefordshire, one of England’s most sparsely populated counties with a number of old and poorly insulated buildings, major transport problems and limited access to the mains gas grid. The community’s plans include establishing buying syndicates for insulation materials and renewable energy technology, setting up community transport schemes and support networks for old and vulnerable people, and exploring ways of conserving water and managing floods.

Other examples from across the country include reducing emissions from food production by creating local food supply chains, promoting healthy low meat diets, using allotments to grow food locally, improving the insulation of old houses, and making farms key local renewable energy generators by exploiting wind, hydropower and solar power.

Nat Sloane, Big Lottery Fund England chair, said: “We want to support local communities to make greener choices to improve their quality of life and help them to become resilient to the changing environment. The small steps being taken by these projects will have a big impact and will hopefully spark a change in behaviour that makes sustainable living second nature to us all.”

To help the communities achieve their goals, a partnership led by Groundwork UK and including BRE, Federation of City Farms, Energy Savings Trust and nef has been appointed to deliver support, advice and guidance to the community partnerships. They will also establish a learning support network to capture and share learning with other communities and to inform the future development of investments of BIG’s Sustainable and Resilient Communities strategy. (www.communitieslivingsustainably.org.uk)

Communities Living Sustainably is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s £50m Sustainable and Resilient Communities strategy, which aims to encourage behaviour change amongst individuals and communities so they can cope better with the environmental, economic and social impacts of a changing climate. Vulnerable people, including those on low-incomes or older people, are less likely to cope with the negative effects of climate change such as floods and heat waves or severe cold weather.

See a list of all thirty projects receiving funding today 
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Further Information

Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours media contact: 07867 500 572
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Ask BIG a question here: https://ask.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Follow BIG on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BigLotteryFund #BIGlf
Find BIG on facebook: www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund

Notes to Editors