Community Regeneration Funding

About the fund

The Highland Council has the responsibility of delivering various external funding programmes to enable community-led local action. This allows community groups and organisations to apply for funding to deliver projects that respond to the needs of their local area and support positive change.

Community Regeneration Funding is an umbrella term being used to cover multiple community-led external funding programmes. We have developed a streamlined process where applicants can apply under a single call for expressions of interest to distribute several funds.

Community Regeneration Funding is currently made up of:

• Highland Coastal Communities Fund
• Place-Based Investment Programme
• Community-Led Local Development Fund
• UK Shared Prosperity Fund

The Highland Coastal Communities Fund and the Place Based Investment Programme are annual funding streams and an allocation to the Highland Council is made by the Scottish Government. Local Area Committees are awarded a proportion of the annual allocation from these funds based on Scottish Government formulae. This means that each Local Area Committee has their own budgets to award projects. Decision making on which projects are awarded funding is made by Local Area Committee Members. This fund will re-open during 2024.

Community Led-Local Development Fund is a competitive Highland-wide funding programme for rural areas. Decisions on which projects are to receive funding are taken by the Highland Strategic Local Action Group. This group is made up of third sector representatives, public and private organisations. This fund is currently open.

UK Shared Prosperity Fund main priorities are to support local businesses, communities and place, people and skills development. The Council has agreed on a delivery plan on how it will utilise the funds from the UK Government. CRF will support the delivery of the 'communities and place' strand by distributing capital and revenue funding for community groups and organisations to develop regeneration, town centre improvements and digital infrastructure projects. This fund is closed.

*Please note that Badenoch & Strathspey is not eligible to apply for Highland Coastal Communities Fund as this is allocated to areas with a defined coastline. The Community-Led Local Development Fund in Badenoch & Strathspey is being delivered by the Cairngorms Trust (external link).

We administer the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund for large scale capital projects. This is a competitive national fund, and the Scottish Government assesses applications for funding. The fund is currently closed.

In addition, we administer the Nature Restoration Fund for biodiversity projects throughout Highland. This fund will re-open during 2024.