Design Council CABE has announced the fourteen organisations who will receive grants totalling £114,000 to fund their work with local communities in helping them raise the design quality of their area.
The first grant scheme, Neighbourhood Projects Small Grants Programme, has selected 13 varied organisations across the country to receive small grants, totalling £79,000, to provide advice and support to community groups to help them improve design quality in neighbourhood projects. They range from the Bath Preservation Trust, to Groundwork in Merseyside, MADE in Birmingham, the North of England Civic Trust in Cumbria and Sustrans in Buckinghamshire. Each will fund a unique project, ranging from creating a design 'vision' for a village, to a neighbourhood climate change mitigation design strategy or starting a self-build design collective for vulnerable young people.
The second grant scheme, Design Review Small Grants Programme, will award five grants, totalling £35,000, to local design review panels in Staffordshire, London, Wakefield and Hull to help them explore new ways to involve the community in reviewing the design quality of proposed new developments in their area. Arc in Hull, with two design review grant awards, proposes to work with two school communities and a neighbourhood group in Kingswood; Open City in London proposes to work with a residents design review panel in Barking and Dagenham; Beam in Wakefield proposes to work with community in South Kirby to develop as well as review a design proposal.
"Supporting communities in developing their own vision for their area, and involving them with local design review is vital in ensuring that Britain's new planning system empowers people and is truly accountable," commented Diane Haigh, Director of Design Council CABE. The grants are part of Design Council's commitment to supporting initiatives to promote the value of good design in businesses and communities.