The Lancashire Wildlife Trust receives Green Recovery Challenge Fund grant

The Lancashire Wildlife Trust receives grant of £218,000 from the government’s Green Recovery Challenge Fund

• 68 projects have been awarded grants between £62k and £3.8 million to kick-start a pipeline of nature-based projects while creating and retaining jobs
• First funding round sees £40 million pot allocated, second round of funding to open in early 2021

Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s Myplace project is one of the first environmental projects awarded a grant from the government’s £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund.

Defra announced grants between £62,000 and £3.8 million today, to help create and retain thousands of green jobs. The projects, spread across England, will see trees planted – 800,000 in total – and protected landscapes and damaged habitats such as moorlands, wetlands and forests restored, alongside wider conservation work. The projects will also support environmental education and connecting people with green spaces.

Working in close partnership with the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, Myplace, uses a connection with nature and the outdoors to help people feel healthier, happier, improve their confidence, meet new people, develop new skills and improve their career prospects.

The Green Recovery Challenge Fund grant will allow us to sustain Myplace delivery into 2022, it has saved several jobs and will also see us creating two new traineeships next year for young people aged 16-24. It means that we can continue to take referrals into our green wellbeing service and support local people not only to improve their wellbeing by connecting to nature, but also to support those people to learn more about how to help natures recovery, including getting active and delivering green space challenges to improve 20 local green spaces.

Myplace Manager, Rhoda Wilkinson said: “In the most challenging of years it’s been amazing to see so many people embracing nature as a way of managing their wellbeing. Support from the Green Recovery Challenge Fund means that we will be able to continue to make sure that people struggling with their wellbeing have the opportunity to connect with nature, as well as giving more people the opportunity to get active in natures recovery.”

The Green Recovery Challenge Fund is a key part of Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan to kick-start nature recovery and tackle climate change.  The fund is being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.

Environment Minister, Rebecca Pow, said:

“These projects will drive forward work across England to restore and transform our landscapes, boost nature and create green jobs, and will be a vital part of helping us to build back greener from coronavirus.

“I look forward to working with environmental organisations as these projects help address the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, while creating and retaining jobs as part of the green recovery.”

Ros Kerslake, Chief Executive, National Lottery Heritage Fund, said:

“Supporting our natural environment is one of the most valuable things we can do right now. All these projects are of huge benefit to our beautiful countryside and wildlife, but will also support jobs, health and wellbeing, which are vitally important as we begin to emerge from the coronavirus crisis.”

The fund is supporting a range of nature conservation and recovery and nature-based solutions projects, which will contribute towards government’s wider 25 Year Environment Plan commitments, including commitments to increase tree-planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025.