Digging deep to make a difference
More than £90,000 has been being spent over the last six months across 25 local projects aimed at creating or improving green spaces for the benefit of Wirral communities.
The 25 projects all successfully bid for grants from the Community Green Grants Programme, which is funded through the Liverpool City Region’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) allocation and managed by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
The aim was to help local groups create more biodiverse environments, provide health and wellbeing benefits and support community action on climate change through volunteering opportunities, as well as improving access to healthy food and strengthening communities by bringing people together.
With grants ranging from £540 to £15,000 these groups have spent the last few months delivering on their ideas, initiatives and events to make a difference where they live.
Some of them are featured on the short films you can see on this page.
We know that the UK is one of the most nature depleted countries and we wanted to see projects that will help support the work we are doing as a council to improve local green space and biodiversity. The projects also support the wellbeing of local communities and create local pride - particularly in areas where these aspects have been diminished.
The grant scheme has given local groups a fantastic chance to work together and bring their ideas to life in order to help make Wirral a more biodiverse and attractive place to live and thrive.
The grants were divided into ideas to deliver ‘green and blue infrastructure’ - which includes establishing physical things such as community or urban gardens, wildflower meadows or new ‘green corridors’ - or ‘social value and volunteering’, which can also be new or improved infrastructure, but with an emphasis on encouraging and engaging local people through workshops, events or volunteering opportunities.
Wirral Council for Voluntary Service (Wirral CVS) administered the UKSPF funds for the Green Grants programme. Wirral CVS is a member-led organisation which aims to support voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector organisations in Wirral and used its wealth of knowledge in voluntary sector to work with Wirral Council to award the grants.
