Walney Extension Community Fund
In October 2015 Ørsted (Formerly DONG Energy) decided to construct an extension to the operational Walney offshore wind farm The extension will be located in the Irish Sea, west south west of the Walney Island coast in Cumbria.
Keen to invest in local communities, Ørsted has committed to a fund for community and environmental projects worth approximately £600,000 a year for the lifetime of the project (around 25 years).
Grants from the fund from £500 up to £50,000 are available, and there are normally two application closing dates each year.
Late applications submitted after a closing date will be processed in the next round (approximately six months later).
To be eligible to apply for a grant your project must be located, and for the benefit of communities within the funding area. Please note the area of benefit also includes the coastal tidal zones directly in line with the onshore areas.
If you have questions about whether your project is located in an eligible area please call the GrantScape team before spending time completing your application. Once you are confident your project is located within the area of benefit, read the criteria carefully to make sure your project is eligible.
To continue an application visit GrantScape - Continue your application.
Walney Extension Community Fund STEM Projects
Ørsted’s East Coast Skills Fund and its Walney Extension Skills Fund is now open to applications for the seventh round. This year there will be over £230,000 available through an open application process to experienced organisations that can develop and deliver Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) related training or education courses, a one-off event, or a programme of targeted events.
For more details visit GrantScape - Round Seven of Orsted's Skills Fund.
Wyre Community Lottery
Our online community lottery provides not for profit community groups with a simple way to raise funds. 60p from every £1 lottery ticket sold will go to charities, voluntary organisations and other good causes. Players of the lottery can win a £25,000 jackpot, plus a variety of other prizes.
When a player buys a ticket they choose a specific good cause to receive 50p of their ticket money. A further 10p in every pound will go into a general Wyre Community Lottery good causes fund. Alternatively the full 60p can be donated to the Wyre Community Lottery good causes fund. The remaining 40p funds prizes, operating costs and VAT. The council do not make any profit.
For more details and to how to sign up see Wyre Community Lottery.
Community Ownership Fund
The Community Ownership Fund helps communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take ownership of assets at risk of closure.
The Community Ownership Fund helps to ensure that important parts of the social fabric, such as pubs, sports clubs, theatres and post office buildings, can continue to play a central role in towns and villages across the UK. The Community Ownership Fund helps to safeguard the small, but much-loved local assets on which we cannot put a price.
From July 2021, community groups have been able to bid for up to £250,000 matched funding to help them buy or take over local community assets at risk of being lost, to run as community-owned businesses.
For further details see the Community Ownership Fund local authority promotion pack (pdf).
If you need information, advice, or guidance for this or other community grants and funding, please contact community@wyre.gov.uk.