Huge boost to grants for low recycling councils

The change was made in an amendment to the guidance issued on how to apply for the 76.3 million available in the second round of bids.

It sees a substantial swing in the proportion of funds the Government intends to allocate to each category of bid. Originally, 17 million was allocated to “turning around low performance” projects – 22% of funds available. This has more than doubled to 45.9 million – 60% of funds and the biggest single category by 33 million.

The table shows fund allocations with the original figures in brackets

Most of this money was due to help partnership and general projects – funds allocated for these fell by 10.2 million and 12.4 million respectively. DEFRA also increased the upper limit for partnership bids, in section one of the guidance. While the ceiling limit on bids is 3.5 million for all other categories, the amended guidance gives an upper limit of 5 million for partnership projects.

Projects in the categories “high performance innovation and best practice” and “developing community initiatives” will also loose out.

Amended

A note on the DEFRA website explained: “The guidance for 2003/04 was initially issued in early August 2002, however we have recently amended it following recent consultation with ministers.”

A DEFRA spokesman said the department was keen to see low performers making a change to their recycling performance, but denied it was Government policy to get all councils to a certain recycling rate before moving on. “This weighting is purely for this round of money,” he said.