Rural England Prosperity Fund - Opening this week

The next round of the Rural England Prosperity Fund (REPF) will open for applications for South and Vale based projects later this week.

REPF offers up to £75,000 of capital funding for projects that help to improve productivity and strengthen the rural economy and rural communities. Funding categories are:

Capital grants for small scale investment in micro and small enterprises in rural areas
Capital grants for growing the local social economy and supporting innovation
Capital grants for investment in capacity building and infrastructure support for local civil society and community groups

Important information - please read

Please read our Grants Policy, Standard Conditions and Capital Expenditure documents on our South and Vale websites for full information on the REPF grant scheme.

The application process for REPF is reasonably complex and will take time to complete. Support with the application process will be available from the Economic Development team throughout the six week application window and we invite queries to be sent to business.support@southandvale.gov.uk.

Projects must be located in an eligible area as defined through DEFRA’s Magic Maps. While most areas in South and Vale are included as eligible, there are notable exceptions in areas of Abingdon, Shippon and Culham. We advise applicants to contact us for assistance in checking area eligibility before considering an application.

Which documents will I need to apply?

While you wait for the application window to open, we thought it would be useful to let you know which documents you’ll need (alongside your project details) to apply for the scheme.

We're asking applicants to submit a significant amount of evidence up front as this helps to speed up our assessment process, giving us all the information we require to accurately assess applications, recommend decisions and award eligible projects.

Documentation in the organisation’s name, showing the postcode
Charites will need to provide their constitution
Businesses must provide evidence they are trading
Evidence of property ownership or landlord’s permission for project
Planning permission, if applicable
A copy of your organisation's bank statements (no more than 3 months old)
A budget breakdown for the project
Quotes for your project costs
Evidence of secured match funding for the project (if applicable)
Evidence of how any remaining project costs will be funded

A further newsletter will be sent out as soon as the application window opens.