How Much Can We Offer?

Grant Levels

The NHGP grant budget is limited. Scoring against the assessment criteria merely determines the priority for projects. Applications may be refused or offered a lower level of grant if there is insufficient budget or there are concerns about value for money or risks in delivering the outputs.

Grants are normally awarded at up to 75% of project costs or 60% of an organisations core costs.  Normally applications will be considered for grants of £500 to £300,000 (the maximum grant for land purchase, access and countryside recreation projects is £120,000).

The 2009/2010 budget will have to support some on-going projects as well as new applications. Competition for funding is therefore expected to be high. In our consideration of applications which stretch over more than one financial year, we will be mindful of the need to reserve adequate funding levels for future years. We expect the next call for applications will be Spring 2009.

NIEA Natural Heritage has a separate budget for research projects. Contact the Natural Heritage Research Team on 028 9056 9648 for further details.