With the support of Durham County Council, Durham Community Action are working alongside the Business Energy Efficient Project (BEEP) and the Low Carbon Economy teams to provide support to those responsible for the management of community buildings to reduce their carbon footprint and help to make their buildings more energy efficient.

This flexible and agile small grant programme is to support community buildings to invest in low carbon measures following an energy efficiency audit.   This £130,000 grant pot will make available in the region of 26 grants to Community Buildings across the county.

These grants will be for minimal works in response to actions identified by an energy audit, to use as match to lever in more funding for community centres.

Practical improvements to community buildings might include insulation and draughtproofing, installing renewable heating systems, investing in energy efficient lighting, fitting heating controls, putting in water saving gadgets, and changing to more efficient means of heating water.

This programme will run until 31st March 2023 or until the grant pot is fully allocated.

Application process:  

Community buildings must have had a BEEP audit completed either prior to applying or as part of the application process.

Applicants will be asked to:

·         complete a short online application form (detail of questions below)

·         undertake a grant appraisal discussion with the DCA team

·         provide additional information including a recent bank statement, a copy of their governing document and the BEEP audit

Successful applicants will be asked to:

·         Provide evidence of spend

·         Track the ongoing energy use and spend (in order to identify and track carbon reduction impact)

·         Participate in ongoing monitoring exercises of County Wide Carbon Reduction targets


DCA and BEEP/Low Carbon Teams will be working together throughout to monitor the impact of this grant programme and as such will collaborate on the assessment and monitoring processes.

Please complete the following questions:

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* 1. Organisation name

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* 2. Organisation contact details

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* 3. Please confirm that you are a ‘not-for-profit’ organisation with a governing document, annual accounts and a bank account in the name of the group with at least 2 unrelated signatories? (DCA will ask to see a recent bank statement and your governing document).

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* 4. Charity or company number if applicable

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* 5. What will the funding be used for?

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* 6. Please describe the items being funded with costs

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* 7. What is the total project cost?

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* 8. What other additional funding have you secured or are hoping to secure to cover the cost of the project? (outline of how this grant acts as match funding where applicable)

Before submitting your application, please read:

· I confirm that I am authorised to sign this declaration on behalf of the organisation.

· I confirm that this application and proposed project within it has been authorised by the management committee or other governing body or board.

· I confirm that the information given in this application is true.

· I confirm that the organisation will not use this grant to pay for any spending commitments it has made before the date of this application.

· I confirm that the grant will be used for the purposes detailed within this application and that where costs incurred are less than the grant offered, the organisation will return any unspent grant when requested unless permission is granted for it to be used by the applicant for an acceptable purpose.

· The organisation shall ensure that all parties involved with the project comply with their legal obligations.

(We reserve the right to request evidence of this if necessary).

Thank you for your application. We will be in touch in due course to discuss your application further.

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