Community Regeneration Funding

About the fund

This fund is currently closed. Future funding rounds will be publicised early in 2024.

The Highland Council are inviting community groups and organisations to apply for Community Regeneration Funding (CRF) to finance projects that will respond to the needs of their local area and have a positive community impact.

This is the second call for expressions of interest where the first round was for revenue only projects. This second round is for both capital and revenue projects but there are some area variations. Please read the information on these pages and check the Community Regeneration total area funding allocations before you apply to determine the availability of capital or revenue funding. 

Projects must be able to start from early 2024 and be concluded and claimed by 1 March 2025.

Highland-wide or strategic projects where they deliver activity in more than one committee area are not invited during this funding round.

The deadline to submit an Expressions of Interest is 12pm on 8 September.

Completed forms should be emailed to communityregenerationfund@highland.gov.uk

Background

The Highland Council has the responsibility of delivering various external funding programmes to enable community-led local action. This allows community groups and organisations to apply for funding to deliver projects that respond to the needs of their local area and support positive change.

Community Regeneration Funding is an umbrella term being used to cover multiple community-led external funding programmes, administered by the Highland Council. We understand that applying to multiple funding programmes can be time consuming, and often confusing, with each fund having a separate application process and deadlines. We have therefore, developed a streamlined process where applicants can apply under a single call for expressions of interest to distribute several funds.

Community Regeneration Funding is currently made up of:

• Highland Coastal Communities Fund
• Place-Based Investment Programme
• Community-Led Local Development Fund
• UK Shared Prosperity Fund

The Highland Coastal Communities Fund and the Place Based Investment Programme are annual funding streams and an allocation to the Highland Council is made by the Scottish Government. Local Area Committees are awarded a proportion of the annual allocation from these funds based on Scottish Government formulae. This means that each Local Area Committee has their own budgets to award projects. Decision making on which projects are awarded funding is made by Local Area Committee Members.

Community Led-Local Development Fund is a competitive Highland-wide funding programme for rural areas. Decisions on which projects are to receive funding are taken by the Highland Strategic Local Action Group. This group is made up of third sector representatives, public and private organisations.

UK Shared Prosperity Fund main priorities are to support local businesses and communities and place. The Council has agreed on a delivery plan on how it will utilise the funds from the UK Government. CRF will support the delivery of the 'communities and place' theme and some of the overall UK Shared Prosperity fund allocation will be distributed to community groups to develop and deliver projects.

*Please note that Badenoch & Strathspey is not eligible to apply for Highland Coastal Communities Fund as this is allocated to areas with a defined coastline. The Community-Led Local Development Fund in Badenoch & Strathspey is being delivered by the Cairngorms Trust.

We administer the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund for large scale capital projects. This is a competitive national fund, and the Scottish Government assesses applications for funding. Round 11 application window has now closed, and the fund will re-open during 2025.

In addition, we administer the Nature Restoration Fund for biodiversity projects throughout Highland. This fund is currently open to accept applications.