Community Ownership Fund Round 3 Window 2 is Now Open

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar welcomes the opening of window 2 of the 2023 Community Ownership Fund. The fund is now open to applications from 31 August to 11 October.

The £150m Community Ownership Fund helps communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to take ownership of assets at risk of closure.

The Community Ownership Fund helps to ensure that important parts of the social fabric, such as pubs, sports clubs, theatres and post office buildings, can continue to play a central role in towns and villages across the UK.

This Fund forms part of the UK Government’s levelling up agenda, helping support ambition and building opportunity, with support targeted towards places where community assets can make the most difference. The Community Ownership Fund helps to safeguard the small, but much-loved local assets on which we cannot put a price.

Applicants can now make the case for up to £2 million in capital match funding to help establish a community-owned asset at risk of being lost without community intervention.

Read the prospectus (Opens in a new window or downloads a file) and find out how to apply to save your community asset.

The first bidding window opened on 31 May and closed 12 July 2023 at 11:59am. If applicants applied in this window, we aim to inform them of the outcome of their application in Autumn.

There will be 4 bidding windows each year at regular intervals.

A summary of the key changes to the design of the programme include:

• Increasing the number of bidding windows per year.
• Removing the 2-application limit for all projects.
• Having a fully onboarded and operational development support provider (available via the MyCommunity (Opens in a new window or downloads a file) website), now offering in-depth support to projects of greatest need alongside initial advice and support with queries for all applicants.
• Clarifying and strengthening our guidance documents and application form for applicants (read full details of the assessment criteria guidance).
• Introducing 2 additional considerations the Secretary of State can use to exercise discretion on short listed bids (read full details of the decision-making process).