The Programme, managed by the Royal Society for Nature Conservation (RSNC) and nine consortium partners, provides funding to community groups to establish and expand recycling, re-use and composting schemes.
The new money takes the CRED programme's total funding up to 36.5 million, of which 10 million has already been awarded to community groups.
Several changes to the CRED application rules have also been made in an attempt to make the Programme more flexible, including an extra year for groups to spend their money extending the final date to December 2007. However, the submission deadline for grant applications from CRED remains at September 2005.
Michael Singh, executive director of RSNC, said: “We are delighted to receive this additional lottery funding to distribute on behalf of the new Opportunities Fund. Along with this and the more flexible programme, we will continue to support communities in England tackle waste issues and increase diversion from landfill.”
Other changes made in light of the additional funding include the removal of a cap at 100,000 of grants to be spent on capital costs alone. This means groups can now apply for the maximum grant of 300,000 to spend solely on equipment.
Restrictions on the number of projects groups can apply for in each region has increased from one to three, allowing larger groups to apply for more than one project in a region.
Groups will also be allowed to begin their projects following the original offer letter without having to wait for the confirmation date.
The Community Recycling Network, one of the nine consortium partners in the CRED programme, has welcomed the changes to CRED. Paul Knuckle, team leader for CRN's business support team, said: “As a consortium partner to CRED we were obviously delighted with the additional funding. We were talking to RSNC about making changes to the programme and the changes that have been made gives more flexibility overall.”
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