Drop in sessions for £1m Pride in Your High Street fund bidders
A series of sessions start next week to help groups across the borough wanting to apply for the Council’s £1m Pride in Your High Street fund.
The Pride in Your High Street fund opens for bids on 11 May and will provide a major boost for the high streets and local centres of Telford and Wrekin’s main towns.
Organisations in these areas can bid for funding: Dawley, Donnington, Hadley, Ironbridge, Madeley, Newport, Oakengates, St Georges and Wellington.
Anyone is welcome at the one hour drop-in sessions to help organisations, community groups and businesses who may wish to apply for this. These are on:
• 23 April, The Place, Oakengates - 5 - 6pm and 6.15 - 7.15pm
• 28 April, Dawley House, Dawley - 4.30 - 5.30pm and 5.45 - 6.45pm
• 30 April, Adams Grammar School, Newport – 5 - 6pm, 6.15 - 7.15pm
The £1m fund is split into two parts. The first is an £800,000 bidding pot for projects that support at least one of a number of criteria that include:
• Increasing footfall in a high street or centre
• Bringing redundant or empty buildings back into use
• Bringing a new service or function to a high street or centre
• Making a high street or centre cleaner and more pleasant
• Extending established operating hours of a high street or centre, for example at evenings or weekends
• Creating or protecting jobs
The maximum any area or single project can receive from this pot is £100,000.
Applications are encouraged from a range of organisations including parish and town councils, regeneration partnerships, business, charities and voluntary sector groups.
Bidders will be expected to find at least 10 per cent match funding and it is hoped that the Pride in Your High Street fund can be used to lever much larger investments into these areas from other organisations.
The second part is a £200,000 Innovation fund, which will have a maximum grant for a project set at £20,000. This part of the fund would help support projects and events that promote borough towns as destinations, highlighting their distinctive and individual attractions.
The application process for the Pride in Your High Street fund will open on 11 May. Bids must be submitted by the end of July and successful schemes will be notified in the early autumn.
Kate Callis, assistant director Development, Business & Employment, said: “The Pride in Your High Street fund is a great opportunity for these towns to create new and exciting initiatives that can provide another boost to their high streets.
“I hope that groups in each area will come together and submit some really innovative ideas with a lasting impact on these high streets or town centres and make these even better places for our residents and visitors alike."
