£9m for New Round of Air Quality Grants Programme
Capital grants are available to local authorities in England to support their air quality responsibilities.
Government has announced the next funding round of the Air Quality Grants Programme will benefit from a £9 million boost.
The programme provides grants for eligible capital expenditure by English local authorities on their air quality management duties under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995.
In particular, Defra are looking for applications with projects designed to:
- Provide air quality benefits soon (in next 1 to 2 years)
- Develop solutions over the longer term by increasing awareness and encouraging behaviour change.
At least £1 million of the £9 million available this year will be dedicated to projects to improve public awareness in local communities about the risks of air pollution.
Since it was established, the Air Quality Grant scheme has awarded almost £70 million to a variety of projects, including a digital education package to teach children and parents about the health impacts of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, the development of a community website to share air quality information and raise awareness with local residents and visitors, and a project to highlight the air quality issues that surround domestic burning.
Local authorities in England, that have exceedences of EU limit values for nitrogen dioxide as determined by Defra’s national assessment for 2010 and/or air quality management areas for nitrogen dioxide, are eligible to apply.
Local authorities may submit an application in partnership with one or more other eligible authorities. When doing so one authority should be indicated as the lead authority for the project.
There are no set funding amounts. A guide price for allocations is for projects between £10,000 and £60,000 in total but applications for amounts outside this range will be accepted for consideration.
The 2021/22 deadline for applications is 8 October 2021.
(This report was the subject of a GRANTfinder Newsflash.)
