Rampion grants over £230,000 to Sussex communities

19 community groups to receive a total of £230,249 from Rampion Fund second round.

• Lancing Parish Council will receive a large grant of £50,000⁽¹⁾ towards the redevelopment of the Monks Recreation Ground, including nature area, tree planting, recreation equipment and dog waste powered lighting. This scheme involves an extensive local community partnership, built to develop the project.
• Tide of Light community group received £8,952 for a community project which will include a life size polar bear sculpture made entirely of milk bottles
• Community Transport Sussex received £45,500 to replace their ageing diesel community bus with a new more eco-efficient mini-bus and two fully electric wheelchair accessible vehicles. This will help to provide up to 9,000 passenger journeys and support hundreds more people tackling social isolation
• Ashurst Village Hall received £10,000 to install solar roof panels to the newly built Ashurst village hall in order to enhance its already eco-friendly credentials, which includes an air source heat pump.

Rampion and the Sussex Community Foundation has announced that the second round of grants has been distributed from the £3.1 million community fund set up by the offshore wind farm last autumn.

Chris Tomlinson, Development and Stakeholder Manager for the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm said: “We were particularly encouraged by applicants such as Ashurst Village Hall, taking refreshing and progressive approaches to energy generation for their community building, which will save costs in the longer term.”

The Rampion Fund is designed to help fund local projects, particularly those with links to the environment and ecology, climate change and energy, as well as those that work to improve community facilities, with some consideration for energy generation and use.

The Rampion Fund is managed by Sussex Community Foundation, a local grant-making charity. It supports the local community, from Littlehampton Harbour in the west, to Beachy Head in the east and up to the A272 near Twineham in the north.

Kevin Richmond, Chief Executive at Sussex Community Foundation, said: “We were delighted with the quality of the applications we received, over 50% of which were from groups that had never applied to us before. That was very encouraging as we are always looking to reach out to sections of the community that need support from our growing band of fund-holders and donors.”

The deadline for the next round of applications to the Rampion Fund is Friday 14^th September 2018. For more information, visit sussexgiving.org.uk/rampion  or call 01273 409440. Grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 are available, with higher grants up to £50,000 for larger capital projects subject to matched funding.