2024 Community Growing Grants

Falkirk Council has launched their 2024 Community Growing Grants, with small grants of £50 – £500 available to buy eco-friendly seeds, plants, soil, peat-free compost, and garden tools and gloves.

The aim of the grants are to make gardening and growing spaces accessible to everyone, without risk to wildlife or the climate, given the often higher cost of buying eco-friendly products.

The grants are open to community groups and organisations, with projects prioritising People, Plance and Planet; eligible projects include those:

• People:
  • fostering good community relationships between people
  • bringing people into gardening and growing
  • reducing health or social inequalities for a particular group or community
• Place:
  • encouraging people to take pride in their community
  • benefiting biodiversity (eg. wildlife)
  • for people living in areas of high deprivation
• Planet:
  • all purchases through the awarded grants must be as eco-friendly as possible
  • Falkirk Council will only fund projects which do not damage wild places, in Falkirk District or beyond, or add to the climate emergency

Please note, the grant will not fund annual flowers (plants which only last a year, eg. summer bedding).

Deadline Date, How to Apply, and Further Information

The deadline for applications is Wednesday 14^th February.

To apply, please read the fund guidance document (available to view or download as a pdf document), and complete the linked application form and bank mandate. These should both be submitted by email: letsgrow@falkirk.gov.uk

Alternatively, for further information (including full eligibility), visit the Falkirk Council website, or contact the Community Growing Officer at the email address above.

Definition of “Eco-Friendly”

For the purposes of this fund, Falkirk Council has given the following examples as “eco-friendly”:

• peat-free compost, which must explicitly say peat-free; multipurpose composts will probably still contain peat
• organic vegetable seeds and plants, with no chemicals used to produce them, resulting in less environmental damage done where they are grown
• peat-free plants, which can be found via this list of UK suppliers
• FSC-certified timber products
• reusable products or things made out of recycled material

Background

Falkirk Council has launched this grant as part of their response to the ongoing Climate and Nature Emergency, which Scottish Government’s “Tackling the Nature Emergency – Scottish biodiversity strategy to 2045” strategy refers to as:

”The Global Climate Emergency and the Nature Emergency are twin reinforcing crises: the actions we take to address each are fundamental to our wellbeing and survival as a species. There is now an indisputable body of evidence that biodiversity, both globally and in Scotland, is in real trouble. Our efforts to address the crisis to date have generated some lessons and local successes, but we urgently need to accelerate and scale up those efforts to drive landscape and seascape scale recovery.”