Funding Infomation
County Grant Scheme - Community Buildings/Village Halls
The County Grant Scheme is a scheme which provides capital capital funding to Community Buildings and village halls in Devon.
Devon County Council present the County Grant Scheme cheque to CCD Village Hall Committee at Broadclyst Village Hall 2006.
The old scheme involved the following:
One-third matched by the District Council in which the Village Hall is situated, one-third matched by the community building/Village Hall Committee through local fundraising and one-third from Devon County Council administered by the Community Council of Devon.
The current update
The County Council's Executive decided, on 14th October 2008, to allocate £500,000 from the proceeds of the sale of Exeter airport to enhance the County Grants Scheme (CGS) for village halls.
We are aware that the criteria and assessment processes for the CGS were not designed to manage sudden and significant increases in funding and activity. Therefore there have been some amendments to the current scheme. Please see the link below for the key changes to the CGS guidance.
[ key changes to CGS guidance ]
Grant awards from CCD are now between £1,500 and £30,000.
An application form [ application form ] - 125kb and guidance notes [ guidance notes ] - 162 kb can be downloaded by following the links in this paragraph.
It is necessary to plan your project correctly and articulate the future benefits the work will have within the community. Community consultation and support is a key factor, for further information on developing a project see the information sheets available (link to information sheets). If any capital works are undertaken within a community building that affect issues of access then an independent access audit needs be undertaken by the village hall. This will need to be submitted with your funding application. For more information see the disability access pages below awareness.http://www.dacb.org.uk/Pages/Access_Audits
District Contacts
Up to a maximum of a 1/3rd is applied for from your District Council and/or Dartmoor/Exmoor National Parks. The contacts for each District are listed below:
East Devon: Jamie Buckley (Link to East Devon District Council)
Exmoor National Park: (Link to Exmoor National Park)
Dartmoor National Park: Holly Tiffen (Link to Dartmoor National Park)
Mid Devon: Paul Tucker (Link to Mid Devon District Council)
North Devon: Caroline Vernon Jackson or Lucy Thomlinson (Link to North Devon District Council)
South Hams: Amanda Harvey (Link to South Hams District Council)
Teignbridge: Steve Matson (Link to Teignbridge District Council)
Torridge: Anna Malone (Link to Torridge District Council)
West Devon: Rob Sekula (Link to West Devon Borough Council)
Please ring the district council and speak to the contact listed. You will need to ask about funding for village halls and get information about their application process (sometimes there isn’t one!), deadlines, timelines for decision and level of funding available. In some cases, maximum awards are £3,000 and sometimes as much as £25,000. Please note that CCD can not award more than what the District is prepared to offer.
David Kinross (CCD Senior Projects Manager) offers funding advice at “Meet The Funders Workshop”, Liverton Village Hall, Teignbridge . .
Community Fundraising
Finally, and most importantly, your community must raise a 1/3rd or more of the costs for the project. Obviously, this can be a challenge particularly for small communities with large project proposals. We suggest that in this current economic climate of low availability of grant funds, you keep your project modest or break it up into yearly phases, applying for funds for each phase ahead of it actually taking place.
Community fundraising is crucial. It may take a while to build up the reserves necessary to fund the project. The more money you have in place, the better any application will look to a prospective funder. Approach your Parish Council early for a proportion of the precept in coming years and make a good case for it! You can also gain small grants of £50 - £500 from various trusts (a list of which can be obtained from CCD). You might also want to look at income-generators such as markets, fairs, sale of local goods, realistic increases in hiring charges, etc.
Stokeinteighead Village Hall Committee at the construction site of their new village hall 2006.
Other Funding Sources
There are also £2000 interest-free loans available from CCD (Link to RILF) and larger small-interest loans from ACRE and The Charity Bank. Call CCD for details on the schemes available. There are other sources of capital grants and these should be investigated by your committee at the time when you start planning your project. You should investigate the following:
The Big Lottery Fund (Reaching Communities and Community Buildings Fund) (Link to The Big Lottery Fund)
Awards for All (Link to Awards for All)
Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (Link to SWEET)
Heritage Lottery Fund (Link to Heritage Lottery)
Low Carbon Buildings Programme (Link to LCBP)
All of these grant schemes have website presence, so perhaps do some research on the net first. You can then approach Council for Voluntary Services or CCD for more specific guidance on approaching one or more of these funders [Link to Funding Advisors] .
Not to be missed out, do consider revenue sources of funding such as funds for tutors for adult learning classes and funds for co-ordinating the start-up of an after-school scheme for children. Social enterprising solutions to community needs (e.g. local farm produce sold two mornings weekly from the Hall) are also worth setting up with pots of grant funding, and will bring in additional income (i.e., surplus) which can be pumped into your refurbishment project.
Do keep CCD aware of your current project plans and send us updates to help us help you better: [davidk@devonrcc.org.uk]. Or why not drop us your latest newsletter or parish magazine article.
