There will be 38.75 million from National Lottery money available to community recycling projects when the 'Transforming Waste' programme for England is launched in early 2003. Applications are likely to be made from early Summer 2003 with awards made towards the end of the Summer.
At the first AGM of the London Community Recycling Network held last week, members heard that successful bids are likely to be those community groups involved in partnerships.
London CRN director Ben Metz advised members: “Community Recyclers should start to investigate the potential for increased collaboration and partnerships on services and funding applications.”
Partnerships
The NOF money will be available to projects that establish new recycling, reuse or composting services, expand existing facilities or increase the weight of material recycled, reused or composted through education or awareness raising activities.
As was highlighted at the London CRN annual meeting, the NOF guidelines stress the importance of partnerships between community recyclers and other parties.
The guidelines state: “We hope to encourage the formation of cross-sector partnerships, between the community sector, and the public and private sectors, in particular where clear links can be made with Local Authority plans or strategies, including contractual arrangements, where appropriate.”
Click here to read the full NOF guidelines.
Local authorities have already been seeing the value of working relationships with community recyclers in many areas, and it's very much in their interests for local projects to successfully apply for the NOF money.
One London Borough recycling officer told letsrecycle.com: “Community recyclers will be very important in helping us to achieve our targets, and it's been quite difficult finding them in our borough – but the London CRN has been a big help in that direction.”
A meeting designed to help the partnership process get going in the capital was run by London CRN the evening before their AGM. Over 80 of the city’s community recyclers, local authority officers, policy and decision makers attended.
Bids
The bidding for England's allocation of NOF money will begin once the scheme has been launched in January 2003. It is being run by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation (RSNC), which also organises Landfill Tax Credit Scheme funds through the Biffaward scheme.
Unlike DEFRA's 140m National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund, however, there won't be a specified amount guaranteed for London organisations.
An RSNC spokesperson told letsrecycle.com: “There won't be any set amount awarded to London as there was in the DEFRA fund – this is being treated as an England-wide fund. Awards will be made for between 50,000 and 300,000 for each successful project.”
The Scottish portion of the NOF Transforming Waste fund has been set at 5.25m, which will be run by a group of organisations led by Forward Scotland (see letsrecycle.com story).
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