Grants up to £75,000 to support larger improvement projects to rural community buildings in England such as full refits and extensions.
ACRE is pleased to be able to re-release their main grants scheme which was first announced in 2022 in celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
This scheme is for those responsible for rural community buildings who wish to make substantive improvements to their building, whether that be extensions or improving energy efficiency and contributing to Net Zero.
Awards can be made to cover 20% of eligible project costs, up to a maximum amount of £75,000. The balance of funding for the works proposed must be in place, or at least confirmed within 6 months of receiving a grant offer. They recommend you only submit an application to the fund once the project is ready to proceed, and you have everything in place.
Please note, smaller grants up to £5,000 are available for more modest improvements.
There is not currently a closing date for Stage 1 applications, but they reserve the right to close it should the Fund become oversubscribed.
They will assess Stage 1 applications strictly in the order that they are submitted. If your Stage 1 application is successful you will receive information about how to complete Stage 2 of the process. Your Stage 2 application will have a short window to prepare for the first meeting of the award panel which is expected to be in July. All project work must be completed before the end of March 2025.