Community Relations Council

• Jobs
• Press Releases
• News
• Links
• Speeches
• Contact
• Council Minutes

08 May 2001

Launch of £5 million New Opportunities Funding for Greener Communities

The Creating Common Ground Consortium, a unique partnership of voluntary and statutory organisations and an Award Partner with the New Opportunities Fund, today launched the Green Spaces and Sustainable Communities programme in Northern Ireland.

The Green Spaces Programme will deliver two separate but complementary programmes totalling £5.24 million over the next three to five years:

The Grants Programme, of £2.04 million will provide the opportunity for disadvantaged communities throughout the Province to make better use of their local environments and create more sustainable communities.

Creating Common Ground will award grants to projects which can contribute to two of more of the following themes for the benefit of a local disadvantaged community:

• Environmental Regeneration
• Community Safety
• Neighbourhood Renewal
• Community Diversity
• Building Community Infrastructure.

The other programme is the Umbrella Scheme, through which the Consortium will target the most disadvantaged communities within the Housing Executive's stock; again, using the local environment as the location through which disadvantaged communities can create more sustainable green spaces and contribute to their wider regeneration and renewal.

Paddy McIntyre, Chief Executive of the Housing Executive, the Lead Partner of the Consortium said:

"Creating Common Ground is a unique partnership of key voluntary and statutory organisations. We are fully committed to engaging with local disadvantaged communities to enable them to access funding and other resources. I truly believe this programme can effect real change and have a real impact on people's lives within those communities."

Walter Rader, New Opportunities Fund's Head of Office in Northern Ireland said:

"Today's announcement marks an important step in the work of the New Opportunities Fund in Northern Ireland. The Fund welcomes the roll-out of its Green Spaces and Sustainable Communities Programme and the appointment of Creating Common Ground as our Award Partner."

"Creating Common Ground's innovative and exiting plans to deliver this programme will add a new dimension to lottery distribution in Northern Ireland."

(Quote from Mary McKee, currently Chair of the Consortium, to follow.)

Notes to Editor

• The Creating Common Ground Consortium is a unique and strategic partnership of key statutory and voluntary agencies in Northern Ireland including:
• Northern Ireland Housing Executive
• Community Relations Council
• Groundwork (NI)
• Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust
• Northern Ireland Office
• Department for Social Development (Urban Regeneration Office)
• Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and
• Business in the Community is the private sector advisory member.
• The Consortium is only one of 12 Award Partners with New Opportunities Fund throughout the United Kingdom, and the only one in Northern Ireland, delivering the Green Spaces and Sustainable Communities Programme.
• The Grants Programme will provide grants across 3 bands:

1. £500 - £10,000 (including a small grant of up to £3,000 to cover costs of feasibility studies, community audits, technical assistance, training etc).
2. £10,000 - £25,000
3. £25,000 - £50,000.

• The Grants Programme will award grants across six, four-monthly award periods up to June 2003.
• The Umbrella Scheme is a programme focusing on the local environment within disadvantaged communities within the Housing Executive's stock. It will develop a programme of regeneration across each of the five themes specified within the Grants Programme and will create the basis of a wider programme of community regeneration and renewal.
• Guidance Notes and Application Forms can be obtained from:

Creating Common Ground

The Housing Centre

2 Adelaide Street

Belfast

BT2 8PB

Tel: 028 9031 8270

E-Mail: creatingcommonground@nihe.gov.uk

• For more information please contact Jennifer Hawthorne, Northern Ireland Housing Executive, Tel: 028 9031 7743 or Amanda Doherty, NOF Communications Tel: 028 9034 7504.