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: