Stephen Morgan MP calls on local groups to boost their resilience through SSEN’s Resilient Communities Fund
Portsmouth South MP is encouraging community groups, charities and not-for-profit organisations to apply for grants of up to £20,000 for projects that support local resilience.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has set aside £220,000 to fund projects across its network distribution area, including Portsmouth, and applications will remain open until 17 May 2019.
The fund will support projects that achieve one of the following criteria:
- Vulnerability – to protect the welfare of vulnerable community members through enhancing their resilience and improving community participation and effectiveness.
- Resilience for Emergency Events – to enhance community facilities, services and communication specifically to support the local response in the event of a significant emergency event.
This is the fourth year of SSEN running the RCF being open. During this period SSEN has provided £2.13m of funding to 325 projects. Previous projects that have been successful include; HOPE Portsmouth that received funding for a defibrillator; Solent Rescue, that received funding for a flood rescue kit; and Isle of Wight Search and Rescue, that received funding for a 4×4 vehicle.
Stephen Morgan MP said:
“I am consistently impressed by the wonderful work of charities, community groups and not-for-profit organisations in Portsmouth, often on limited budgets.
I welcome therefore SSEN opening a funding stream for these groups to access funds to support efforts that promote resilience.
However, this funding can only be delivered to my constituency if Portsmouth groups apply. This is what I want to see, so I encourage all interested parties to find out if their projects qualify on SSEN’s website and apply before 17 May so we can boost resilience across Portsmouth.”
Gareth Shields, Community Investment Manager for SSEN, said:
“Our previous funding rounds have shown a diverse range of successful applicants and we’d really like to encourage communities who may not have not applied before to come forward with their resilience projects.
We are encouraging applications that will directly impact vulnerable customers and make a real difference to local communities by helping them build their overall resilience.”
Set up in 2014 as a two-year pilot scheme, SSEN has pledged to extend the fund to 2023 using a proportion of the income it receives from the industry regulator Ofgem in relation to its stakeholder engagement performance.
Guidelines and applications forms are available on SSEN’s website: www.ssen.co.uk/RCF/England/ with a full report on the fund available here –https://www.ssen.co.uk/RCF/
The 2019 fund is particularly focused on projects helping vulnerable or isolated people living in SSEN’s network areas, with applications of up to £20,000 to be considered by an independent fund panel.
The closing date for applications is 17 May 2019, with decisions on awards to be made by September 2019.
