Did you know that the carrier bag levy where you pay a small charge for carrier bags in shops can go to fund listed building works?
DoENI writes:
Environment Minister Mark H Durkan today gave hope to environmental groups suffering funding cuts. He will allocate £2million, still to be distributed from the £4.2million revenue raised via the Carrier Bag Levy, to help offset the funding cut to his Department as a result of the Government budget. The money will go to deliver key environmental priorities with particular emphasis on projects that benefit communities.
The Minister has developed a three pronged plan to allocate the money.
One million pounds will be made available for a Natural Environment Fund. The Minister will convene a workshop tomorrow, Thursday, for relevant NGOs who have suffered cuts to their natural environment funds. Through the new Fund he will be seeking ways for the groups to safeguard our most valuable sites and protect our wider countryside, lever in significant other sources of funding and encourage volunteering and community action. He will also be looking to the groups to operate as cost effectively as possible including creating shared services such as administration to help reduce their own costs.
The second element of the plan is to provide £0.55million for DOE’s Challenge Fund, targeted principally at schools and community groups.
Thirdly, the Minister will allocate a further half a million pounds for Listed Building Grants.
Commenting on this additional money Mark H Durkan said: ‘My Department suffered a higher percentage of cuts than any other department which created strain across all DOE business areas. Last month at the Environment Committee, I vowed to do what I could to respond to concerns raised by a range of key environment groups across the North. The £1million injection into the Natural Environment Fund will see those NGOs and councils, specifically managing our landscapes, who had previously been in receipt of, but lost funding, now get some funding restored. But we need the money to be used effectively. That is why I am organising a workshop in Crawfordsburn tomorrow to work with environment groups on how we can ensure we use this money as effectively as possible. I need to hear their views on how we can safeguard our best environmental sites and our unique landscape, how we can best protect our priority species, and how we can encourage closeness to nature and access to the countryside.
‘I will be asking the groups how they can cut their running costs, to share services focussing on delivery, so that this money can stretch as far as possible. This is a limited amount of money and we must use it to the maximum. On top of this, the existing DOE Challenge Fund will receive £0.55million, but with a much greater focus on delivering schemes for schools and community groups, particularly those who support vulnerable, unemployed or older people.
‘Half a million pounds will also now be allocated to listed building grants. Under the budget cuts no money was to be allocated here. Now some important community and church buildings for which applications have already been approved and whose focus is on community access, will benefit.’
Mark H Durkan concluded: ‘This is a tough tough time for environmental groups. I hear their concerns loud and clear. What I am now doing is fulfilling my vow to try and alleviate some of that pain as imaginatively as possible. When the Carrier Bag Levy was introduced, the promise was that it would be spent on the environment. We are fulfilling that promise, but in a focussed way with emphasis on projects that benefit communities, while also putting the onus on those receiving the money to be as efficient and effective as possible. I will continue throughout the year to keep seeking ways to address this budget problem for the benefit of our environment.’
