More than £1.1 million will be set aside for councillors to invest into grassroots projects across Gloucestershire.
Gloucestershire County Council leaders have agreed today (September 17) to create the Grassroots Neighbourhood Fund.
This will provide each of the 55 county councillors with £20,000 to invest in their community.
This fund will be open to grassroots projects that improve health and wellbeing and tackle health inequalities within each member’s division.
Each councillor will have two years to spend their allocation with a minimum of £250 and a maximum of £5,000 available to any one project.
Shire Hall chiefs say they are committed to reducing health inequality in the county and improving life expectancy.
And the Grassroots Neighbourhood Fund aims to achieve this by investing into communities to support locally driven activity to promote health and wellbeing and community connections.
Councillor Paul Hodgkinson (LD, Bourton-on-the-Water and Northleach), who is responsible for public health communities and fire, said he was delighted to announce the proposal at the cabinet meeting today.
He explained the grant scheme is designed to empower communities to improve health and wellbeing and to help tackle what he sees as health inequalities across the county.
“What it means is boosting the health and wellbeing of people in your neighborhood, also making sure that those people who find themselves at the rough end of society,” he said.
“Let’s say those people who are in more deprived areas, those who feel more isolated, can actually have interventions in their community which boost their wellbeing and their health.
“So from October this year, next month until March 2027, we’ll be investing £1.1 million directly into local projects that make a difference.
“This can really help the smaller organizations who want to kickstart some amazing initiatives locally.
“So it might be a play park in the Cotswolds, it could be a community event which brings people together in Cheltenham.
“It could be a cricket club who wants to embrace a wider set of young people. That cricket club could be in the Forest of Dean.
“It might be an old people’s drop-in center where they learn about digital technology in Tewkesbury, or it could be a community cafe in Stroud.”
Community projects will be able to apply for the grant funding between October 2025 and March 2027 and will need to clearly demonstrate how they would use the funding to improve health and wellbeing in their local community.
Information sessions will be held for any community organisation interested in applying.