Community Spaces is a £57.5 million open grants programme funded through the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces initiative and managed by Groundwork UK on behalf of an experienced national consortium.
The programme empowers community groups to improve public spaces in their neighbourhood. It responds directly to people’s aspirations to have better places on their doorsteps – more interesting places for children to play, safer places for people of all ages to sit, greener spaces where people and nature can grow and flourish.
The Community Spaces programme aims to:
To successfully apply for a Community Spaces grant, applications must show that projects will improve local neighbourhoods and environments. Types of projects can include for example;
This list is not exhaustive and if you are thinking about a project that isn’t mentioned it may still be considered - as long as it meets the eligibility criteria.
There will be some cross over with other Big Lottery Fund funding streams. For example, projects looking at play areas, orchards, city farms and woodlands will be considered as long as they meet the general criteria of the programme, although there are other Big Lottery Fund Changing Spaces Programmes that will also fund these types of projects.
Community Spaces was open to community groups to apply for small (£10,000 - £25,000) and medium (£25,001 - £49,999) grants on a rolling basis until Friday 7th January 2011 at 12 noon. The programme is now closed for all applications. All supporting documents and signed declarations needed to be received by this date. The programme closed for large (£50,000 - £100,000) and flagship (£100,000 - £450,000) grants in January 2009.
A full list of what Community Spaces will and will not fund is available under the Criteria section.
